Sharpie Design Build Sail Fairing and Durepox Painting

Progress is being made on the building of my 23ft (7m) Sharpie design.
In this video I cover how I applied fairing filler to the hull, faired it up with a plane and longboard. Next was painting with the versatile New Zealand made Resene Epoxy Urethane product, which can be used as primer, undercoat and even topcoat! They use it on America's Cup boats because it is light and tough, so it's got to be good right? Watch the video to see how it goes.

[@brianmacadam4793]

A friend and I faired and long boarded a 33' boat, a week of my life gone forever !

[@KarlFullerNZ]

You're lucky you only got away with a week! But I know what you mean ;-)

[@garyunderwood1505]

Watching watching.Gary U

[@KarlFullerNZ]

Gidday Gary! Good to know you're keeping an eye on me ;-)

[@alecfuller4234]

Jeepers Karl, that is an insane amount of dedication and hard work. I take my hat off to you. Very interesting watching the video.

[@KarlFullerNZ]

Really appreciate your comment Alec and really good you are enjoying the videos. Yes, when you get the opportunity, you have to go for it! I wonder what the creativity of your 'steam punk' world could do for the looks and function of a yacht ;-)

[@dominictarrsailing]

surprise twist at the end! why did you did the fairing material in stripes? that paint looks pretty good!

[@KarlFullerNZ]

That's a good question and I could have explained better in the video but I'm trying not to make them too long. I wanted to get a thin even coat of fairing so I didn't have to chase humps and hollows too much and looked on Utube for the best method others have used and found one method that I thought was worth a try. I went back and forwards as to whether I liked it or not and in the end really didn't like it for the following reasons. It's extra work, to coat between the strips I had to sand the previous strip edges. I don't think it gave and extra control of thickness, thickness seems to be best controlled by covering a certain amount with each trowel. It's time consuming to have to go back. And maybe this is the biggest reason, at the edges I couldn't avoid getting a higher resin 'glassy edge' which is a lot harder so the plane would even balk at it and sandpaper would tend to ride over it. I wanted to avoid putting a large amount of easily sandable undercoat to to create an even hardness surface, for cost, time and weight considerations. I think I've got away with it but it does mean treating the first coat of Durepox as a sanding undercoat, which is fine IF you sand it straight away, as I did. I'm no plasterer but you can see that when I was nearly finished and doing the bottom, I was starting to get the hang of it and the bottom is easier because you can put on a thinner coat and know it is less likely to sag. I've spent a lot of time in boat yards, doing the engineering work and always watching, out of the corner of my eye, how other trades did things. I liked the idea of doing what RAN sailing did at first and went way from, using a notched screed which certainly has it's merits as you can almost perfectly gauge the depth of the first spread but I didn't like the idea of not being able to sand in the grooves to get a 'key' but I've seen professionals use the method with success! The other thing is, I did so much fairing before glassing, I really did not need a lot of filler and I'm really not bothered with I really high level finish. It's one of those areas of construction where you could spend a huge amount of time, and to my mind it's not worth it. I've seen an experienced having something so nicely finished, you're afraid to use it! I'm more about trying novel concepts and the challenges with rewards that 'can' bring. Yes, sorry about the twist at the end, I was a bit stunned when I looked all over the place for the footage I thought I had taken after setting up the 'reveal'. To be honest, it's not a great looking finish as it's heavily sanded so is very flat and only intended as an undercoat. But it certainly was a milestone in construction.

[@dominictarrsailing]

@@KarlFullerNZ thank you for the detailed answer! I am learning a lot from your channel. I know from my own experience what a hassle it is to make videos and so I really appreciate the effort here, especially roping in a camera person so you can get some action shots! I think the same way with faring but the results that I accept are much worse than what you do! I will try for more on the next boat though!

[@KarlFullerNZ]

@@dominictarrsailing that's great you got something from my videos, just passing on what little experience I have and what I've learnt from others. Haha, as for roping in a camera person, that's my partner stopping by the shed on the way home from work and taking the initiative to grab some video although I'll have to remind her to use panorama and steady the movement but it's a great little perspective and it's good to see Utube doesn't prevent a little copyright music in the background that I was listening to. I checked out your channel, subscribed and I'm looking forward to viewing your experiences! Yeah, there's nothing like experience to get fairing right.....