Oughtred Snipefish - hull completed - finishing begins

[BrianP]

The Snipefish hull is finally built after all this time. Gunnels on, outer keelson and skeg, and epoxy lumps and bumps removed by hot air gun and scraper.

The building is being pulled down soon so I now have a set of keys to be able to get on with finishing her.

I am about to wet on wet three coats of epoxy on the hull.

Could I check with you, where some fairing is needed, for instance at the plank scarphs, do I do that after three coats of epoxy, or before the three coats.

I am thinking that best to get the epoxy sealed to the plywood, three  coats will fill and fair the surface anyway. Then after leaving to set properly smooth and fair at that point.

Fyne Boats do a less smelly epoxy which allows brushes to be washed out after use. Will this be ok on top of the SP106 used to glue the hull together?

Thanks, Brian

[BrianP]

My Epiphanes booklet on painting advice turned up this morning, and had the distributor's phone number - Marineware Ltd. Their tech support would know best so rang them and they were very helpful.

Advised 3 coats wet on wet and then the filler. If possible do the filler when the third coat is still green so there is a chemical bond, same as the three coat wet on wet principle.

Discussed whether it was worth coating with Eposeal, a very thin seal coat. Felt this was more for wooden restorations, and would still need an epoxy primer coat on top. So advised using normal epoxy and then 2 pack paint.

Suggested SP320 would be the best eopoxy to use when the final finish is varnish. The SP320 is formulated to be very clear. We have used SP's epoxy so far to glue the boat together so that sounds good.

I asked about painting two pack paint, having found their two pack varnish absolutely no problem to apply. Advise was to make sure paint, boat, room temperature are as near to 17 degrees as possible. So a warmish dry day should be good. Also to use 5% thinners.

Brian

[AdrianG]

Hello Brian

Out of curiosity, how did your Snipefish turn out? I don't think we ever saw the finished article, did we (or if we did, I can't recall it)? What was it like to row?

Kind regards
Adrian