better than new..................from P

My hands told the story. Over the past week I have had to soak them twice in a hot Epson Salts solution with hopes that I could open and close my fingers with less pain the next morning. They looked horrible. I wore latex gloves most of the time, but the fingers still somehow ended up with a semi-permanent blackish stain speckled with stuck drops of hard epoxy with a few dark purple lines betraying open flaps of skin here and there. But the ten hour days in the boatyard plus the cash paid to Capt Fred for his expertise were all worth it. Senara's rudder is better than new! In addition to fixing the rudder, I sanded her bottom (insert joke here) and applied two new coats of ablative bottom paint, plus waxed & buffed the hull while I had the chance. So back in the water she went yesterday! For the record I took pics of the rudder job as it progressed. I think my camera has urethane foam stuck to the button now.

After cutting open the rudder (see previous blog post) we created a "form" from plexiglass and cardboard so we could funnel the liquid down into the rudder and watch it as it reacts and becomes a hard-as-concrete foam compound. The foam expands to 15 times its liquid volume within 40 seconds of mixing it together. You better be ready to pour when you mix it.

A better view of the cardboard "funnel" we built to make the first pour. Capt Fred is in the background.

When you pour these two chemicals together they "take off" into a four-pound per cubic foot dense closed-cell foam that is akin to floating concrete. We had to throw away the bucket shown here. A comedy of errors resulted in a weird looking huge block of foam surrounded by what used to be a blue bucket.

Missing Picture Coming Soon: the hard foam in the rudder with the forms removed.

After Capt Fred shaped the hardened foam with a grinder, we tapered off the edges of the side panel and dry-fitted it back into place, in preparation for setting it into epoxy and fiberglass.

We then wetted the entire backside of the panel with epoxy, stuck it on, and applied two layers of fiberglass & epoxy around the joint.

After curing, it was my job to grind it all down and "fair it out" with a grinder and sander. Nasty job. But it is now smooth and rock solid. Ready for a couple of coats of barrier-coat.

After two coats of barrier-coat, I applied three coats of ablative bottom paint, re-painted the boot-stripe, and voila!

Finally we splash !!!