Another beautiful day, not quite as warm as yesterday but little wind and plenty of sunshine. It would have been a great day to be out sailing.

The first part of the day was very relaxed, I used the small 600 W heater to warm the epoxy I put on yesterday just to ensure that the epoxy had cured thoroughly. I had to do this in stages since the heater is quite small and gave each section about 30 minute of heat. By this time the hull & epoxy being warmed was comfortably warm to the touch and I could move the heater to the next part.

All in all it took seven goes to cover the whole area, one for the front of the stem and three per side for the rest.

Whilst the epoxy was being heated I gave the transom reinforcing pads some undercoat. This stuff dries quite quickly and I'll try to apply another coat later.

The AIS antenna mounting pad also had a coat of varnish and was hung up in the wet room where the sunshine has made it nice and warm. I should be able to get another coat of varnish on this later this afternoon.

The next thing that needed to be done was the holes in the three remaining keel bands. I moved the drill press to an area where I could work on the 3m long metal bar that comprised the two main keel bands and used a jig to centre the bar under the drill bit.

The first piece of metal was just drilled a small amount so that the larger drill bit can be easily centred in the necessary spot.

Once all the holes were marked in one piece, the second piece was placed under the first and clamped into position and a hole with the correct sized bit drilled through both pieces at the same time.

Finally, the holes were deburred and chamfered. The holes in the stem piece were then also drilled, deburred and chamfered but this took a lot less time since there was only one piece to drill and it was only a third of the length of the other two bands.

When this was finished I put a second coat of undercoat on the transom pads, another coat of varnish on the antenna mounting pad and stopped for the day.

Time for a cup of tea.