I remember the TV commercials, but never actually saw one. Did people eat the cookies that came from those things, ’cause I’m wondering if they ever got hot enough to actually cook? Turns out an automotive paint booth goes up to about 175degrees max; our epoxy can be post-cured at 70 degrees F for a week, or 3 hours at160 degrees. A while back we decided all low/no stress parts, like interior furniture or hull fairing, would simply cure ambiently during the warm weather. Recall last year we made a big Sheetrock box and a dozen heat lamps to cure the beams. It was a big pain in the rear but worked ok. Of course that box ended up 6″ too small for the daggerboard, and I was grumping about. Neighbor John with the exceptionally restored ’66 corvette asked why I didn’t just take the stuff to Harry the car painter? “He knows how to deal with fiberglass…”
The Sheetrock box went away and over a year we built a pile of stuff for the curing oven, capped off by the chainplates. Today was the day for PrismaCar’s paint booth.

For our records, the booth ran 3 hours at 170 degrees to cure the dagger, both rudders, all steering parts, chainplates, mainsheet anchors, windshield, hardtop, boarding ladder, stern tower, windlass platform and boom end insert.
Thanks to owner Harry Strouse for the $50/hr cash rate – worked out well for both of us. And the shop guys were amused by having to move a car out of the booth for these weird boat parts.

After the field trip, the chainplates went directly to their new homes. Here they’re wedged / suspended in position with some of the bedding compound applied. Tomorrow will be the rest of the filleting and maybe the glass work.

Deck hardware continues to be test fitted, then all holes over drilled and re packed with epoxy putty, hardware final fitted then removed for the paint job. But there are a few permanent mount metal and carbon pieces that will get painted in place. Today we bonded on (and bolted) the receiver points for the aft beam triangle braces. These were a lovely aluminum welding job done nearby. Yesterday the pieces were chemically etched with the West Systems aluminum prep (a two part easy to use ten minute job – buy the small size as it goes a long way) then coated in clear epoxy. They were dry and ready for bonding today.

The window cutout made it an easy-reach one person job to tighten the bolts. That was just coincidence, not swell planning.

And at days end we “paid” for half the morning bake by figuring out to eliminate some hardware up on the bow – we’ll see how that turns out tomorrow.