Black numbers and markings

Today was the day for the final color. I've added a huge hull number ("723") to the deck and smaller ones to the sides where I had left a white area.

I also thought it would be useful if I added a jib boom adjustment scale to the foredeck. I made ticks at 2", 3.25" where Windjammin Sails Star 45 Tuning Guide suggests, and a few more after that. The Star 45 RC Class Sailboat is a beautiful and classic looking boat, but most people paint it one solid color. I thought we could do better.

LOADS of touch-ups to do. Will need to do some sanding and such as well. I tried two different masking sheets and both bled. Grrr... One was standard shelving sticky paper. The other was Tamiya Masking Sheets. You might expect the experiment with the shelving material to bleed, but not the Tamiya! Erf... this will create a lot of work. But nothing can be done right now. Need to let it harden overnight and then start scraping and sanding tomorrow. Sigh...

This pic is of the Tamiya masking sheet I used for the jib boom adjustment scale. Used a stick with a pin in it on one end, and a larger piece of wood that I superglued to the other end. Then held a sharp hobby knife flush to that larger piece while I scribed the two arcs. 

The "723" bled a lot and I used a Tamiya sheet there too! GRRR...  And the "2" is hard to read because I placed it in an awkward area. Should have a lighter background color. Doah...

The pic below is of the jib boom scale. I used a Tamiya masking sheet for it and it worked OK in this place. Still bled a bit but overall it's fine. I'll still have to clean it up a bit. Turned out OK but I'd have made a few changes if I were to do it again. You can see some of the bleeding. 

In these two pics you can clearly see the goofs, bleedings and other screw-ups that I'll have to spend time fixing. Sigh...

Here you can see the natural cedar bottom. It has a layer of fiberglass and two coats of epoxy on it. The epoxy coats have been sanded smooth but there are still obvious scratches in it. I'm assuming (hoping?) that the clear epoxy paint I'm going to use soon will fill those much in the same way that varnish does. Fingers crossed!

Will have to do some touch ups first, and then also spray some red on the starboard side where I had to sand off a really big smoosh I put in the red paint while it was still wet. Ugh... Way too many goofs!

But then a nice coat of clear epoxy, followed by some coats of varnish on the deck.

Then it'll be on to the rigging. Sailing later this month maybe, or certainly by May.

I would LOVE to hear from any other Star 45 builders out there. Let me know how  your build is coming along. Also, if any current builders would be willing to view my Star 45 Construction Manual rough draft and give me some feedback then I'd love to send it to you.  Please leave a comment or email me.


Peace!