Weekly Reflection

    This week, I learned a lot more about the harsh reality of epoxy sanding. I already know well how long it takes to sand said epoxy, but I had used an orbital sander for the majority of my work before this week. This meant that the sandpaper was easily fouled by the dust, but the actual process was much less labor intensive. 

    This being said, I did use a block and a dowel to hand sand fillets and portions of the hull stitching so I was familiar with the process, although I had not yet gotten to experience the joy of hand sanding the entire hull. This gave me a good idea of just how much time is consumed with sanding, considering the sanding time on the hull from start to finish easily surpassed 3 hours. 

    The time management regarding sanding goes hand in hand with time management while laying the epoxy. This week I certainly learned a valuable lesson about keeping the  epoxy cure times in mind. Curing is weather dependent, although it tends to cure within 24 hours from when it was mixed. This means that when I am coating the boat, running fillets, or assembling hardware, I keep this 24 hours in mind, doing my best to ensure that I am not left waiting for epoxy to set with nothing else to do. 

    I learned some lessons when things didn't go as expected, for example, the epoxy cure times. I neglected to coat the boat in the morning, and learned my lesson the next day when the coat was not cured through. This caused the dust to stick together, and go through sandpaper disks at an alarming rate. This put me a little behind, because I had to wait longer to lay a second coat. 

    I liked what I was doing this week, despite the fact that sanding slowly kills my soul. It is good to be able to put my full time and effort into the boat now, and I am able to really get things done. It was good to see the boat come together, and I like looking ahead to see what it will look like in a few short days.

    I feel that I will benefit from what I did this week because it has contributed to making the boat as good as it can be. Having the extra time to accomplish what I did this week will allow me to end senior project with a product that I am happy with, which in my opinion is as beneficial as it gets. 

    Tasks accomplished this week have helped me achieve my goals because I have now laid the final base for my finished product. My goal is to finish my boat and be happy with it, and this week has put me well on my way to that. 

Comments

  1. Kyle ConnollyMay 17, 2022 at 8:49 AM

    Aodhan, loving the detail you are able to share about the process of your work - I would be curious to know what lessons you're learning that don't apply directly to this project. For example, are you gaining insights into working with your hands? The empowerment, sense of accomplishment, hard work, weariness that can be a part of manual labor? I've appreciated sneaking a glimpse of your boat when I walk past the boat shop, pretty excited to see how it is coming along.

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