Sand, Sand, Sand
Dave boat two has gotten all of the epoxy resin that she'll get and it's time to sand, sand, sand. The hull is made of western red cedar and the gunwales are made of white oak. A nice contrast in colors.
The hull is 1/4" thick as are all of the pieces of oak. There is a full length piece of oak on the outside of the hull and another one on the inside. The gaps are created by sandwiching 2" long pieces of the oak between the hull and the inner gunwale piece. The main purpose of the gaps is to make it easy to drain any water that is in the boat. They also are handy places to tie small lines to and they give the boat a sweet nautical look.
The trim pieces on the decks are made of laminated pieces of walnut which is also used in the accent stripes on the side of the boat. There are also four strips of the walnut running the length of the hull. The boat also has pieces of mahogany and bass wood in the decks, hull and accent stripes.
When the sanding is done and I have the finish on the boat I'll try to get some good pics of all the different kinds wood in the boat. For now it's sand, sand, sand.
Before it gets sanded the epoxy resin is nice and shiny. I could sand this deck to 220 grit sandpaper and then finish it with a gloss oil based varnish and end up with a shiny finish like this but we're going for a satin finish on all surfaces.
The different woods that make up the deck are from the outside going in toward the center are oak (the outer rubrail and part of the gunwales), mahogany, basswood,mahogany, multiple strips of red cedar with a strip each of basswood and mahogany in the center.
I have to file, scrape and sand all of the wood trim by hand. I don't trust using a power sander where I might take off too much wood too soon. With the sanding done close to the deck trim I can now crank up a 5" orbital sander and sand in steps down to 150 grit on all the resin. I'll sand the wood trim to 220 grit but that isn't necessary with the resin, the sanding marks won't show through the finish if you sand to at least 150 grit.