Here’s what my “thunderboat” looks like now

[Jeffrey Hammond]

Painted the exhaust supports, and mounted the exhaust stacks in the forms. Cut the thin bands of cowling material along the rails, as they weren’t doing anything and looked nasty. Can’t mount the exhaust tubes yet. Last major thing to do is make a carburetor deflector to attach to the cowling. That will be tomorrow.

 

[Jeffrey Hammond]

As I started to think about paint, I realized that the two seams in the front deck that I put wood filler on look horrible. So tomorrow, I’m going to sand off the epoxy on the front of the boat, sand down the filler, and re epoxy. Most of the boat will be natural wood, with some color trim. I just don’t know what pattern I am going to use.

 

[Jeffrey Hammond]

My helmet arrived today. It is quite apparent that my driver is going to have to get a serious haircut in order to fit his big melon into that helmet.

 

[osracer]

My helmet arrived today. It is quite apparent that my driver is going to have to get a serious haircut in order to fit his big melon into that helmet.

Be sure to put some BRAVE pills in his pocket

 

[Jeffrey Hammond]

Will do, Bill!
“Just take a little off the top”. So I wacked him. He got a frontal lobotomy, plus more. Painted the helmet fluorescent orange! Now all he needs is the black sweater shirt, but that’s about 2 weeks away.
I sanded off the round nose part and got down to the filler, and sanded it off. Tonight I’ll recoat with some epoxy.
Have decided to call the boat “Miss Jayne”, after my wife, who was named for Jayne Mansfield, a blonde bombshell in the 50s. Gonna be U-45, with a picture of Jayne Mansfield on the round nose. Mostly natural wood showing. Cowling will probably stay white.

 

[Jeffrey Hammond]

I sanded down the nose, and took off the ugly wood filler that I had applied to the two seams up front. Then I mixed up a small batch of finishing resin, and applied it to the nose. Coat number two tomorrow.

 

[Jeffrey Hammond]

Did the second coat of epoxy this afternoon. It came out very nicely. I still have to make the carburetor protector that needs to be attached to the cowling, but as soon as I put on the epoxy, I left the basement so I wouldn’t mess it up.
I am getting close to painting. I think I’ll have a lot of wood showing with a little trim color around the edges, and also use that color on the cockpit. Do I sand the epoxy until all of the shiny spots are gone, and then start with primer? And what kind of paint should i use? I have a nice compressor, but no paint gun……but this looks like a great excuse to get one. Any suggestions?