Halfway there

All the work we've been doing here during Spring Break is paying off. We have moved away from bondo-ing the hull (for now) and have begun priming the plug. We are priming the plug to get an even smoother surface to lay the fiberglass. The smoother the surface, the better the final hull will look and the easier it will be to separate the fiberglass hull from the foam plug. We used spray paint gun after instruction from the ever talented TC Schwindling. It proved to be faster and more environmentally friendly than many cans of spray paint.
We have continued to work on welding the motor mount frame and should be finishing soon with that. Supplies for fiberglassing have begun to come in the mail along with a new E-Tec motor and larger motor controllers.
As classes start on Monday and team members begin to return from exotic Spring Break vacations, we will continue to work on the various parts of the project. We will rehearse fiberglassing the hull several times before doing the real thing. Practice makes perfect!

And now for some pictures (and a video or two)...

A before picture of the finished boat. Most everything we need is inside.


Andrew Moore uses our new spray gun to prime the plug.

Andrew Moore and Josh mix and pour the paint into the gun. Josh claimed the recipe for the paint has been in his family for years.


Out new toy!

Someone stole my camera and caught me painting the boat.

After using a grey primer, we painted the plug black to more easily see any blemishes.


Josh cooks up some sausage for our mini-inside-bbq. They were quite tasty!


Will (left) and Mark (right) fine sand the plug. After each coat, we sanded the whole boat to try and get the smoothest painting surface possible.

Will (left), our advisor, Dr. Susan Finger (center), and Mark (right ) sand and dust the painted plug.


Mark confirming the safety equipment's effectiveness.


Will painting the plug


A virtual tour of the paint tent

That's all for now,
-Andrew