After three rounds of clear-coating (3-4 coats each round), waiting 48 hours between each round and then sanding with 600 once dry, and then today wet-sanding (600, 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000) and then using my power polisher with compounds, this is what I ended up with. It weighs 769 after the final sanding and polishing, which is weird because I gained a gram since the last spray round but sanded the crap out of the clear coat. I'm guessing that I have a gram or three of wate r in the hull as I used a hose to clear off the sanding residue and absolutely soaked the hull. Perhaps there's some exposed wood too? The polishing compounds really shouldn't add any weight... right? At this point I'm hoping that I'm around 115 grams of corrector weight, but we'll see if I can find a few more grams in the rig. Next step... build the rig. I can't avoid it any longer. Cheers!

I weighed the Vickers V8 IOM this morning after the urethane was dry, and the hull weighs 733. Excel tells me that I'm on track for about 125 grams of corrector weights. Not too bad if I say so myself. Just hope I haven't forgotten to include anything! :p Will sand it tomorrow (if I can wait that long) and see how it looks. I've got some orange peel and a few drips. But I won't be afraid to spray on two more rounds (each round = 3-4 coats sprayed on in a session with 20 minutes between coats, then letting it cure for 48 hours) given that yesterday's coats only weighed 20 grams. That's lighter than varnish! UPDATE after the second round of clear-coating: After sanding the coats from the first round, and doing some weighing, I'm approximating that each round of clear-coating, after sanding, will weigh around 15-17 grams. The hull weighed 730 after wet-sanding the first round. It currently weighs 749 after applying the second round but before sanding. I...

Finally got warm enough in my garage, with the help of my heater, to spray Klass Kote two-part clear urethane on my Vickers V8 IOM. Got some runs and drips but I'll have to sand it anyway in a day or two, and then use the polisher to get it shiny again, although it'll never be as shiny as it is now. Next step... start sanding and polishing. Cheers!

I've spent the past week slowly tinkering on the foredeck for my version of Ian Vickers' V8. I wanted to try to make a plywood one with compound curves. It's made from two layers of .5mm (1/64") ply cut to fit in the foredeck mold frame that I made. The original V8 plans called for a foredeck with compound curves. The fore-aft curve deflects just over 2mm and I wanted to see if I could get it to go that far with a compound curve. It worked! The final deck has a deflection of approx. 2.5mm. Not bad. Here's how the process went... It took some pretty high pressure to get the deck to deflect, but not so much that it will eventually warp the hull. Well... I can't avoid it too much longer... It's almost time for finishing. Gotta get some warmer weather and then dig out the spray gun! Cheers!

Slowly making progress. She'll sail someday! Got the aft deck installed yesterday. The hull still looks unfinished and rough sanded, because it's unfinished and rough sanded.  I'll do the final coating and finishing when I ever get the foredeck installed. The deck was laser cut from .8mm (1/32") birch ply. On the underside, surrounding each hatch opening, there is another layer of 1/32" ply that is about 15mm wide or so. I included a screenshot of the SketchUp model if interested. They give the deck a good amount of stiffness without adding too much weight.  Here's how it looks now. Took some outdoor snaps to get the better light. You can see how the mast well/scoop deck turned out. More later!  Cheers!  

Installed the shroud anchors and the scoop deck today. Here are my shroud anchors. This is the 3D versison. Four small pieces epoxied together. When dry, I drilled out the hole and installed a greased anchor bolt in thickened epoxy and let that dry to make my own threads.  Here they are being epoxied in place. In this picture you can see the "cradle" for the curved scoop deck. When those were cured enough, I epoxied down the scoop deck. I laser cut a hold-down piece of 3mm plywood and taped the edges so it wouldn't stick to the main bulkhead. That's the bit with the clamps on it. It's clamped to the main bulkhead and fits the curve just right. And here's how it looked after curing for 5 hours... I'll keep plugging away! Cheers!

You can buy a pre-made fiberglass fin box (finbox?) for your IOM sailboat for about $150, or you can make your own. The pre-made one might fit your fin if you trim it perfectly enough, but the home-made one will fit your fin perfectly if you are careful while you make it. To do this whole process though, you'll also want to have an IOM fin alignment and measuring jig . It makes all the alignment steps so much easier and accurate. You'll also need a fin, a bulb, heavy fiberglass (I use 6oz. from kayak building instead of the 1.4oz I normally use for RC sailboats. If you only have lightweight cloth then you'll have to do several layers), epoxy, etc... Trim the fin to the shape you need to fit your space.  Tape the fin completely with packaging tape. The brown type seems to be the thinnest. Make sure to also tape the end cuts that you've made. Anything not taped will stick to the epoxy and you'll ruin the fin.  Coat the taped fin with a LOT of petroleum jelly ...