Ross 780 #3450: Rain has Arrived

I have discovered that almost every small project I work on takes about twice as long to complete. I want the restoration to turn out well and I'm enjoying every part of it. I don't want to rush a good thing. So I have installed the foredeck and I have laminated the joint together with tapering plies and then covered most of it in chop strand matte. I then have used a fiberglass fairing compound smoothing the whole exterior surface. It looks good and I have bought a quart of color matched gelcoat soon ready to apply temperature pending. The weather is too cold right now to go to town with resin so I've began to focus my attention elsewhere. I have installed the beautifully powdercoated mast base (Thanks Commercial Powdercoating of Bend OR). All of the hard points are installed in the deck. I guess the lesson I learn over and over is that good preparation results in good results. Also the adrenaline rush in mixing up resin is a bit exciting. I don't want to screw a repair up. I get nervous and I'm against the clock for the material kicking off. I have learned and am learning to calm myself and not worry about the result but to pay a little extra time to finish the job tightly without making a mess of it. I like working with fiberglass because you can take a risk, possible make a mistake with the worst case scenario equals a do-over with a bit of work with a grinder.

I have buffed out the topsides with Perfect It polishing compound. This is easy to do with a machine buffer. The gelcoat is in excellent condition under the oxidation and I have discovered a few areas that will require some repair but for the most part the majority of the gelcoat is in good condition. The non-skid has been cleaned and the cabin top has been buffed out. Tomorrow I'll be laying out the window cutout templates with a Faro arm at lunch.

I will try to include some before and after pictures. But below are a few of the current state of the project.