Kaimusailing

My wet fiberglass was put over some plank ends to dry in the woodshop. They were sopping wet at first, now they are just slightly damp. I will let them dry further before I use them.
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We are in good shape for this project in spite of the cold snap in January. I expected most of the work to be done in March and April. I thought I could work into January and then have about 6 weeks of really cold weather, instead, January was very cold right off the bat, then things have warmed up and we are working our way into March.
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I screwed up with my fiberglass, I thought I had some woven roving and matt on hand, plus biaxial glass on a roll, but the roll only had 1 1/2 yards on it and there was no woven roving to be found. Out of stock, just like UK’s KFC.
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A replacement battery charger came in for the drone and I was able to charge one battery at a time, 5 hours, and then get a few minutes of flight. More crashes. I’ll have to replace the propellers soon. I am getting better. The goal is to get stabilized hovering, countering any wind, maintaining altitude. Then I can start the next step, which is flying out and back with the copter always pointing away. When it points toward you the right and left controls are reversed. Apparently this will become second nature sometime in the future.
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The Chinese vendor who sold me the charger that melted after about 5 minutes has dragged on and on, asking for pictures, and replying with what must be Google translate from Chinese to English. Hard to understand. I ordered a replacement charger for about 8 bucks, from China, weeks of delivery. I’d like to charge more than one battery at a time.
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It turns out Clayton, the 5 year old master of the boatyard, also has a drone, a Propel Spyder XL. He gets excited when I fly my Bugs 3 and brings his drone out and it lights up with an impressive LED display, but nothing happens when he tries to fly it. I looked up the owner’s manual and found out how to get it up and flying. I also crashed it just like I do with my Bugs 3. Don’t tell him. The procedure to get it flying was passed on to other responsible adults who will coach Clayton. Watch out, his drone doesn’t have any propeller guards, he has broken them off by crashing. Now it’s like a whirring cuisinart coming at you.
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My glass came in from Raka, it cost almost as much as the glass to ship it. It turns out that a package longer than 4 feet gets a twelve dollar surcharge from UPS. Narrower glass will cost a lot less than the 50 inch roll that I bought.
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I procrastinated while trying to think up a procedure to stick wet fiberglass on the bottom of the keels. Epoxy is a great lubricant until it sets up, so glass can slide off the side of the hull and also drop off the bottom. I decided to try one single patch on the bottom of the port keel and see if I could get it to stay stable until it cured.
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My idea was to mark the perimeter of the patch with a sharpie pen, then cut a piece of clear plastic dropcloth larger than the perimeter, temporarily tape it down, then mark the perimeter on the clear plastic, remove it, and bring it to a flat table. I used Gorilla tape because it is very sticky. The plastic is laid over the glass and the glass is cut with shears to the outline of the perimeter. Now the plastic and the fiberglass patch are lined up, hull side up. More tape is added to the edge of the plastic, maybe every 3 to 4 inches, sticky side up. Now a batch of epoxy is mixed up. For this procedure I was using 60 ml mixes. First the patch area on the hull is given a light coat of the epoxy, then the fiberglass is wet out on the flat table. After it is wet out, the whole glass patch and plastic are carefully brought to the bottom of the keel and lined up with the marked perimeter, then smoothed onto the keel. A dry foam paint roller is used to work the glass and resin from the center to the perimeter. Air bubbles are pushed out this way. The tabs of tape hold everything in position. In the near 80 degree heat this patch will go off before it cools down tonight.
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The photo is of the patch, side view.