Hi All,

Year 3 and I am nearly finished with the sanding! Problems;

1) Whilst away for 6 months I kept the hull joined to the deck (on the forms) by using packing tape (I had removed most of the staples so as to enable me to sand around the sheer) now I am back and not so merrily sanding away I notice the areas where the tapes been around the boat are lighter and wont sand out anyone out there have any suggestions?

2) I went to almost absurd lengths when stripping the hull to ensure all the strips married up, but invetitably at the stern I had to match and glue some strips which I patched over the existing strips to pack the shape out a bit. Now as I sand them down there are nasty glue marks over the original hull strips appearing, I have tried without great success trying to scratch them away with a scalpel, sanding and using solvents........HELP!!

Finally, the doogie smutz stuff topic, I had very little luck being able to match the colour with it (it always dried too dark) and mostly packed in any gaps with wood. For finer filling I am now using a cellulose filler (Drummel, I think its called) with base white and mahogany which I mix together and sometimes some red powder stuff I bought from the timber suppliers. I have to say it works better for me. I tried doogie smutz years ago (I thought it was my own brilliant idea!) and failed miserably with it with it because I was mixing it with wood glue which NEVER really set hard.