Progress continues at a glacial pace. Today, I managed to glass and hot coat the top of the board. No doubt, this was the one step in the construction process that I was a little anxious about doing. The process of glassing and applying the hot coat seems as though there is very little room for error and plenty of opportunity to create more work or worse. I used some denatured alcohol to clean the deck of the board. Then I made a blue tape skirt around the bottom of the board. Next, I laid and cut the fiberglass to fit the deck with an inch or two of excess glass hanging below the rails. I bought a 3M respirator because the authors of the manual scared me into it with their ominous health warning. I'm sure it was money well spent and no doubt I'll be using it whenever I sand again. Anyway, I carefully read the directions (twice), mixed the epoxy as instructed and then began pouring and squeegeeing epoxy around the deck. It seemed far too easy, which makes me think I may have done something incorrectly or neglected a critical step. I waited a few hours and then applied the hot coat, which is essentially the same thing as the previous step. The board looks pretty glossy and the grain is quite pronounced (as are the many errors I made along the way).
PS In the image of the blue tape skirt, you can see that I have another board in the works. I ordered a Sapling kit and last week I adhered the keel and frames to the bottom planks. The bottom of this board has some contours, so I modified the slats on the rocker table to add pressure where the contours are located.
