This morning started warm and very, very humid. Most uncomfortable. I took the cover off the boat and found that despite the cover, some of the hull was damp and especially in those areas where the dew that had collected on the top of the cover spilt as I removed it!
The first task after that was to remove all the screws from yesterday and then let the hull stil in the warm air to dry.
Later in the day I took a lunch break and worked on the keel bands again.
Each of the bands is now bedded in Sikaflex 291i and held in place with the correct number of correctly sized screws.
The trick with this stuff is to wear nitrile gloves and boiler suit, the sealant gets everywhere, apply the sealant as a thin bead moving slowly long the length of the section and never, never attempt to correct mistakes.
Like this. Trying to fix this will just smear the sealant all over everywhere and make a mess and won’t get the stuff off.
This is an example of where I had no choice. There was a significant gap between the bead and the stem that no amount of bending could fix, so I had to fill that gap with sealant applied with a mixing stick. As you can see, it smeared even though I was being ultra careful.
Later in the evening I set about removing the excess sealant. A sharp utility knife is run alongside the keel band cutting down, but not too hard as to damage the surface . Then a sharp chisel is run along the top of the surface to peel away the cured sealant in strips.
Finally, any remaining pieces of sealant are sanded away. Here I used 240 grit. As you can see, the result is very good. Far better than you would get if you tried to clean this stuff up when it was still sticky.
Having said that, the sealant was still a little too soft, so I stopped doing that and will carry on tomorrow.
Time for a cup of tea.