Well actually this short post just concerns itself with filling… Having sanded off the epoxy cladding, the next step was to fill it to provide a flat surface for painting. I was advised to use Nautix Blue Epoxy filler, which I obtained from MarineWare in Fareham. This is quite remarkable stuff – it’s expensive at £100 for 10litres, but it is VERY fine, a joy to apply and very economic. In fact I used less than 10 litres to process the entire boat. I owe a deal of thanks to Tommy Robinson an old friend and professional decorator for showing me how to apply the filler – the finish we achieved before sanding was quite amazing…
Tommy showed me the way to apply the filler with caulking irons
Now the finish is OK, over about 80% of the hull it’s perfect, but where I had the “tiger-stripe-patterning”, (see below) which seems to result from the epoxy sagging as it cured there is still some unevenness. To be honest I got bored filling and sanding, and it will probably need more work later.
The “tiger-stripe” patterns showing thru filler…
Filler before sanding
My plan was to put primer over this surface and then wait to put the top coats until the boat was ready for the water.
However, as you will see in the next post I changed my mind. Partly as I was just fed-up with looking at the up-turned hull and partly as MarineWare suggested it might be a bad plan to leave a long time between priming and top coats…
…as is obvious here, the “tiger-stripe” patterning in the epoxy was a problem. You can get anti-sagging agents for the epoxy, which would have helped prevent this, and one “could” sand them all out – but I concluded that sanding was just counter productive, as you were just removing strength and a large chunk of £1,200 of epoxy. So the final finish is poor, more filler would have been perhaps a better fix, but that’s not what I did, so Befur has a distinctly poor surface finish!
It is also worth noting that sanding an inverted boat makes you focus on the underwater part, not the bit that will be on display – I knew this, but failed to act appropriately!