Over the past few days I’ve had some opportunity to do a bit of thinking. What percentage of my life has been spent sanding something? I bet that it is a pretty big number. I sand everything. Every single thing I have ever created has been sanded. You’d think I enjoy sanding. I don’t. Over the winter I started brewing beer as a hobby. Beer doesn’t get sanded and it helps relieve some of the pain created by sanding all day.

The deck work is progressing. I’ve patched the large areas with new balsa and three layers of fiberglass. All of the various drying holes have been plugged too. The deck has a lot of uneven areas due to repair work and grinding the original non-skid gelcoat off.

In the first couple of pictures you can see the most recent application of epoxy based fairing compound.

This stuff goes on the deck and then you basically sand most of it off so it fills in the low spots. I use a big 6″ random orbit sander and a long-board. I made the long-board by gluing a  40grit belt (belt sander) to a piece of plywood. It works well and also promotes a good upper body workout.

The last 2 photos are post-sanding. I still have one or two more coats of fairing and then the first coat of epoxy primer.