The Poet Creek Express - Foamie Hybrid

[KCStudly]

I won’t bore you with pictures of spackle going down, but I do have a pointer. This is the sharp (…ish) corner of my plastic putty knife.


Since I can be a bit clumsy with my technique, every once in a while I will tip the knife as I lift off or as I approach the surface and the corner of the knife can dig into the smooth spackle or even gouge the adjacent foam. So I take some fine paper on the small oak block and sand a little radius into the corners of the knife like this.


It doesn’t totally solve the problem (me), but it does seem to reduce the number of occurrences.

Not sure if these pics show the differences well enough between before and now, but this is after: filling the little gaps between spars and foam; building up the areas at the corners of the roof vent; building up the largish low areas in front of the first spar, and between the second and third spars; hatch seams and license plate recess work; various other dings, dents and along portions of the roof edges (all last night); and then sanding it all back down this evening. I still have to do the largish area at the top middle of the hatch, but I had run out of spackle and just concentrated on sanding tonight.





I went thru a whole tub of spackle, but like Karl says, most of it ends up on the floor. The roof vent corners seemed to come out fine with just a little touch-up needed.

Tomorrow will be round 2 of major roof spackle and perhaps get back to rounding the profile edge over.

[mikeschn]

KC,

Nice job sanding! Time consuming stuff, eh?

What grit sandpaper are you using?

Mike...

[GPW]

Let the covering begin !!!

[capnTelescope]

Sanding is meditative and kinda therapeutic. Say "Ommmmmmmmmmmmmm."

[Wolffarmer]

Let the covering begin !!!

What is the opposite of the "Stripper" song?

[GPW]

“ Put it On !!! “ ...

[KCStudly]

What grit sandpaper are you using?

Thanks, Mike. Mostly it is 100 grit (the good 3M premium stuff with tacky back... although it has switched from purple to red and seems to have less tack on the back side now). If it seems like I am taking too much of the blue when I get the spackle down close I switch to 220 grit.

IIRC the long board is also 100 grit, cut down from one of Karl's big belt sander belts, but it might be 120 grit.

GPW, can't rush these things lest we get lumps or void spots. The pictures don't show the whole story; more work to do.

Randy, bow-chucka-wow-wow.

Sanding is meditative and kinda therapeutic.

Can be, but it can also be dirty, boring, and frustrating. One little slip with the sanding block... a corner catches and the block flips out of your hand leaving a triangular dent in the foam, or your fingernails get too close and you make small long gouges. At some point I need to do a test piece and see what will cover and what won't, but my theory right now is to drive all of the big imperfections down until the little stuff is at the "background noise level". (Take every opportunity to remind myself to wear the respirator.)

Karl has suggested that I am close enough to do a sealer coat of epoxy and start spraying high build primer. This, of course implies finishing with glass and epoxy (or at least canvas and epoxy). I lamented that I am not a body worker, and he called me out on that straight away, as I happened to be block sanding at the time. He commented that he is impressed that it is looking as good as it is, having been skeptical with the whole foam, spackle and canvas thing from the beginning; commented several times last night how good it is looking.

[GPW]

Everybody comes around sooner or later ... You just can’t argue with success... The only difference around here is .... how smooth to make the finish ... All just subjective (opinion) ... KC, A good thick canvas covers up a Multitude of sins ... Really ... get the canvas on and looking Nice , and it’ll be Super looking ... Neat(straight) seams are the key ...
For the obsessive , take a light and shine it down the sides of all the surfaces (sideways ) and look for any deviations , hills or valleys ... Foam comes sometimes with a slight ripple in the surface ... Once that’s sorted ( the Big Effect) , everything else is covered ... You’ll have to trust me on this ... You’ll never see those tiny dents ... remember , all that tightens up in the Sun ,paint shrinks , foam expands... all minor variances “bridged" by the taught canvas... It’s like a side benefit of a Foamie ... The “Sock” ...

[mikeschn]

Glenn,

How heavy was your canvas?

Mine in 10 oz...

Mike...

[Wolffarmer]

Sanding is meditative and kinda therapeutic. Say "Ommmmmmmmmmmmmm."

For me hand planning is therapeutic. Mental and physical.

[KCStudly]

I hear you Randy. Planing is much more gratifying than sanding for me, too.

We had great weather today and it was a good day to be building. I did a little more block sanding on the roof and hatch spackle; I could see better in the light of day.

Finished rounding over the street side hatch edge.



I got a little sloppy getting out of position and ended up with some gouges; either from turning the block out at the end of the stroke due to over extending, or just from digging the edge of the block in. Sloppy.


Moving on, rounded over the curb side profile edge. This pic is a bit of a cheat. By holding the camera just far enough off line you can’t see the very noticeable bow in at the top of the wall just ahead of the galley wall edge piece. I made the roof spar shorter here to match the wall, but am now wishing that I had left the spar to plan; it would have been easier to build the wall out to match the spar than it will be to deal with now. We’ll see if I bother trying to fix it, but for now just don’t look straight down this wall.


Here’s an example of the tearing that sometimes occurs from sanding back and forth, rather than stroking in one direction.


Here is an example of how the coarser paper (on the medium length board used for quickly roughing the edge down) can pull chunks of the foam out. This is after finishing with the round over block, showing how the divots from the chunks were deeper than the final target depth.


Worked forward and on down the curb side front. Looking down from above you might be able to see how the piece under the front sparette bows outward some, but this will be behind the rock guard so, no biggie. Maybe I will make another long board, a flat one, to knock this down so that the rock guard fit goes nicely.


Remember this little nugget of goodness? When I glued up the hinge spar blanks, in order to pin and help clamp the pieces together, I used big deck screws into the ends that were supposed to be in the cut off area. Turns out one of these screws was too close and ended up landing half onto the rounded over end. Finally got around to filling it with wood filler; shown here after sanding it back fair.


After sanding the street side hatch edge I think I like the kerfs stuffed with foam better than the spackle blend. They sanded very even with the base foam. The spackle blend did okay, and was definitely quicker to apply, but didn’t sand as smoothly. Probably good enough, just not the same. So tomorrow the plan is to stuff the last of the kerfs on the curb side of the hatch and finish rounding over that last corner. Might get back into what I hope will be the final round of spackle, too.

[dales133]

That foam can be unforgiving.
Ive gouged alot of it cutting and sanding but im skinning with 3mm ply so ive got it easy compared to you.
As much as i feel your pain its nice to see im not the only one going through trial and error moments building these confounded contraptions! .

[GPW]

Since Foam is Lower density than wood , it allows you to make mistakes faster ... But those little flubs don’t mean **** to a tree eh ? Canvas covers all that up ... I was going to suggest those that wanted a Perfect finish might go the fiberglass route , But then remembered reading Glassice’s foam /fiberglass build thread and how much sanding and finishing he had to do , or if he ever finished it or not .... then he disappeared...

Mike , FS canvas was 18 oz. ... Heavy ... Sturdy ... I saw recently The Big Duck had some 24 oz.

[capnTelescope]

For me hand planning is therapeutic. Mental and physical.

Me too, Randy. My new favorite hand tool is the block plane I bought somewhere in the midst of my build. Great for softening edges and adding small details. You get a real feel for the wood.

[Wobbly Wheels]

I've been quietly following your progress and, as others have mentioned as well, I'm picking up a lot from your attention to detail and the questions you're asking yourself as you go.

I was going to suggest those that wanted a Perfect finish might go the fiberglass route...

Yeah, glass cloth is even lighter than canvas so it doesn't hide anything and it makes those imperfections permanent. I'll have a bunch of fairing to do on the Benroy because I was rushing the building...but I accepted that and I'll do it when the monsoon season gets here (now that I have a carport to work in !). And that was using mat rather than the lighter cloth I was using on the foamie.
I haven't done it myself, but in reading others' builds it seems like canvas does hide a lot more.