Aka hull: second coat of primer

 Two hours today for the second coat of primer:

We noticed a very strange effect when coating the port side of the hull which we cannot explain: we will sand it when dry and recoat it

Total work time to date: 737 hours

Aka hull: first coat of primer

Two hours of work today. We gave the aka hull the first coat of primer (Boero Giano + 10% Boero 703 thinner) with a short hair roller. Here's the situation half way through

and here it is completed

Total work time to date: 735 hours

Preparing the vaka hull for painting

Two hours of work today. We sanded the graphite coating to a feather edge on the hull panels; put masking tape all around the edge making sure that the primer will cover about 1 cm of the graphite coating; protected the newly coated bottom with plastic; lightly sanded the whole hull with 240 grit, and cleaned the boat. Next time we will give the first coat of primer.

Total work time to date: 733 hours

Vaka bottom: second coat of graphite

 One hour today to give the bottom a second coat of graphite/epoxy resin after a light scrub with 240 grit. 

Later in the evening we removed the plastic skirt

 Total work time to date: 731 hours

Vaka bottom: first coat of graphite

Two hours of work today. We bought a new roll of masking tape so we could finish to cover the hull with a plastic skirt. We then gave a light scuff with 240 grit to the hull bottom, and finally gave a first coat using about 250 grams of clear resin to which we added 30% (in volume) of graphite powder.

Here's yours truly giving the first coat

 

and here's Cinzia doing a thorough quality check:

Total work time to date: 730 hours

Preparing the vaka for graphite coating

 Just one hour of work today

 Unexpectedly, we ran immediately out of masking tape 😧 so we will have to buy some more...

 

 

So, we decided to bore 4 holes in the carts and put one bolt in each through the aka support blocks to avoid that the vaka slides over the cart while moving the hull around.

Total work time to date: 728 hours

Press stop: graphite!

 The graphite (1 liter of very light powder) has arrived:

This must be mixed with clear epoxy (1 part of powder in 3 parts of epoxy, in volume) and spread on the bottom (2 layers). We'll see...