Started Sanding this week!

We learned this week that dust masks and goggles in 90+ degree heat isn't much fun, but we are pleased with the progress we made.

We purchased a set of "Durablock" sanding blocks. These use adhesive-backed sandpaper that comes in a roll, and because of the cost (you have to buy a whole roll) you feel like it's a race to finish sanding before you run out of sand paper. Fortunately, we've found that a few smacks on a saw horse with the sandpaper will knock out most of the buildup allowing our sandpaer to keep on going.

Here's the progress from a good cleaning to our current state over the course of three days.



A few more details:
The seams where the various body panels meet stick out above the body panels themselves. This is a result of the slight gap in between each piece of the mold for the body. These seams need to be ground flush with the body, then filled later to make them perfectly level.


You'll have to click on this next picture to see enough detail. We are using a criss-cross pattern in sanding to ensure we get a good surface for the sprayable body filler called SlickSand.


What you see below are pinholes in the fiberglass. The shiny black material on the body is called gelcoat. This is applied to the fiberglass to keep the pinholes from appearing at the surface and sucking in whatever you're trying to apply to the surface. We have to be on the lookout for these, and we have to use a special filler called Metal Glaze to fill them in. Every time we sand we'll have to look for and fill any of these that pop up.