: 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?

Could it be that the glue from the tape is still on the boat and you are smearing that out? Just a thought. Possibly a mild solvent to remove it without damaging the wood colour.

: 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!!

I understand this to mean that you had a few strips that lay a little shallow and that you glued strips on top to bring it up to the same fiar level as the others. I have had the same difficulty with this process as well. In the end after the hull is glassed, you may be the only one who knows it is there. I am still wiating to build the Perfect boat. Usually I am the only one who knows where the small faults are though.

: 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.

The fill will always look darker then the bare wood. Match as best as you can to the colour the boat will be when it is glassed. Usually this all disappears as well when the whole boat is glassed. I would recommend that you always use resin as the base as it will definitely become hard for you to sand. Wood glue will smear when you try to sand it. I also try to fill as many cracks with shavings of the wood first to fill larger gaps. You can simply have then stand proud and then cut and sand them down once the glue dries.