Our setup for dust collection is a Dust Deputy cyclonic separator hooked to a ShopVac with a HEPA filter. Dust and debris collects in the Dust Deputy bucket, while the ShopVac bin stays very clean.
The Vac and Dust Deputy are bolted together, and then we put them on a Milwaukee furniture dolly for mobility around the shop.
Sanding is so much fun that we can't wait to do it all day long, and even had lights installed in the Carriage House so we can sand late into the evening! But we don't like the sanding dust, so we connect our sander to a 10 Gallon Shop-Vac, with a Dust Deputy Cyclonic Particle Separator installed in-line from the sander to the vacuum. We also use a HEPA filter in the Shop-Vac.
EDIT! It works a lot better when it is hooked up correctly. In the photo above it is not connected correctly, the sander hose goes into the side port and the vac hose goes into the top port :)
Trimmed the strings and removed the paint sticks, sometimes bits get left behind in the epoxy. Those will get sanded off.
WAVE was moved outside on the finishing dolly for sanding with 60 grit on our random orbital sander, we used the French doors today.
Sanded the repair areas to get them flush. While I was sanding I found an area that I missed, so I made another blind hole patch for that.
WAVE is all different colors, which makes it harder to see areas that need to be faired, so we put on a "Show Coat" of primer, to show us where the hills and valleys are. We used TotalBoat Topside Primer applied with a Mighty Mini roller cover, all available from Jamestown Distributors.
WAVE has a few areas of fiberglass damage, some will require that blind hole patches be installed inside the hull, where the area is not accessible from the other side. To do this we followed the LASER PERFORMANCE Repair Manual and made blind patches, they are inserted through the hole in the hull, pulled snug against the inside of the hull with strings and tied off until the epoxy dries.
WAVE has crushed fiberglass on her chine that will need to be removed and replaced. We'll file it out with a diamond file.
There are a couple of spots where there are gelcoat cracks, we'll skim over those with a sealer coat of thickened epoxy.
I made a mistake installing a transom drain plug, the plan is to repair the transom and get rid of the big hole at the waterline.
Aft keel.
Bailer hole.
A walkaround.
Good shop tables are hard to find!
We filed out the broken fiberglass bits, then sanded the edges with 60 grit on a DeWalt random orbital sander, hooked to a Dust Deputy cyclone and ShopVac. We taper the edges down so that fiberglass cloth can be overlapped. Protective gear includes a hat, goggles, respirator, gloves and a long shirt.
The starboard forward block is loose, we'll push it back in to place after the bottom is fixed.
The center forward foam block is in good shape.
We get a lot of our supplies from Jamestown Distributors, and they picked us to be on their Ambassador Team. We use their TotalBoat products alot and like them, they ship free and the cost is low. They provide some of the products free for us to use, we like that, especially the THIXO, very happy with its performance.
We also like to take the shipping boxes and repurpose them, today this box will be cut up to make up a blind patch.
The blind patch consists of a cardboard backer, that helps keep the woven roving fiberglass cloth stiff. The entire patch gets saturated with thickened epoxy, strings pull the patch flush against the inside of the hull.
We put copious amounts of TotalBoat THIXO on the cardboard, then lay the woven roving fiberglass cloth over the top of that and press the cloth down into the THIXO.
More THIXO is dispensed onto the blind patch.
The patches are inserted into the hull and pulled tight against the inside, tied off with the strings to keep the backer in place while the epoxy dries.
Added THIXO to the edges of the bailer hole.
We might try something different, use a thick layer of THIXO to replace the fiberglass cloth. I'll have a better idea when I sand the repair.
