Conchfish 16 Mrk2 build (Jacksonville, FL)

Progress is looking great! Enjoying following along and seeing the stages come together.

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Looks great from here. Fine job.

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That’s some fine work right there! Thanks for sharing and teaching as you go along.

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Nice progress and documentation. Keep it up!

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Bulkheads fully glassed in. Perfect weather and temps to work with epoxy resin. I used progressively narrow strips, starting with ~8 inches and then cut to length right on the boat. With scissors, I cut darts in the corners of the cloth to help it all lay down smooth…no need to rush.

Back to my job tomorrow so no boat building fun for a few days…ha

Thanks for all of the great comments!

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Your layups look amazing. So clean and smooth, definitely going to pay off in the long run.

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Redfishbum: There’s a guy on the Forum that we used to frequent, looking for a strongback and stations for a Conchfish, if you haven’t sold or promised them. I didn’t get banned, just warned, so I look over there daily. Lots of one-post dufuses and a zillion ads. Enjoy your build updates. TJ

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@TexasJim Thanks for the info and comment on the build! I don’t even go over there unless I need to look at some of the teachings from Chris M.

The stations only are still available and I’ve got a few people interested.

I took a break from building to enjoy the fishing this weekend :smile: I love October/Novermber redfishing in NE Florida.

Bart

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Here’s an interesting update! I had a great plan but I executed it poorly. I figured since I’m making all of these posts, it would be good for me to show my errors/setbacks so others may learn.

I tabbed in the keel box with small squares, about 5 on each side. When the epoxy cured, I added the fillets with the plan to add three layers of cloth all the way around to weld the box fully in place.

After the fillet was placed and cured, I felt something was not right about the small tabs and pushed on the box and it immediately delaminated. I did the same to the others and they did the same. I pushed near the base near the fillets…popped right off.

Dang…I thought I cleaned all of the wax mold release off…nope.

I pulled the box out and removed all of the putty that had cured. Scraper and grinder works great; just took my time.

I worked on the box today and thoroughly scuffed the hell out of it. I hand scrubbed it with simple green and also sanded one more time by hand with a 40 grit. Totally different and as it should have been when I tried to epoxy in place last week.

I’ll wipe it all down with acetone or ethanol before trying again. Weather is nice, I might just clean up my garage today and get better organized :rofl: May go fishing tomorrow :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

Building a boat is all about planning and problem solving…LOL

Bart

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Good catch. Imagine it happening after the floor was down!

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Dude…that’s the stuff that keeps me up at night. Haha

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Bart, everyone. Thanks for sharing Bart.

It’s always best to sand / grind before new glass work. Using peel ply is great but costly and adds more time to a project.

Best thing is wipe off surface with vinegar or denatured alcohol. Acetone can move the blush around and contaminate the area. Best to wipe off surface and then sand grind etc. I use a Makita right angle 3/8” drill with a Roloc sanding pad and 24grit disc. I can sand / grind these areas with one hand and the other hand I hold the vacuum hose sucking up the dust as I go along. The cool thing about using the right angle drills is they are variable speed so you controls the dust better. Also you can shoot the dust flow right or left by setting it in forward or reverse.

Next thing you have to do after vacuuming up is to wet out the the area where the cloth is going to lay down.

NEVER lay cloth down on a dry surface and then wet it out. The bond will not be good. Al way wet out first then lay the dry cloth on top and finish wetting out.

Better system is to wet out the precut cloth strips on a cardboard sheet where you wet out the area first then lay the strips down and wet out, then peel off and lay down on the pre wetted out section. When prepared properly this system goes super fast. Is way cleaner. If you have a helper wetting out goes even faster.

Another tip is to add silica / Cabosil to the base wet out coat first to make adhesion extremely strong and won’t slide or slip off when doing vertical or horizontal upside down tabbing.

If glass cloth, bi axel , any type of cloth is not wetted out properly in the right sequence you can easily delaminate a hull with a simple chisel.

Any eglass polyester layup needs to be sanded or agitated with a Schotch Brite pad if not glassed on after 30 hours time to get a perfect secondary bond.

With epoxy I never ever trust the no blush epoxies, clean it sand it no matter what.

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@Chris_Morejohn Great info Chris! Thanks a ton for this summary!

Bart