I should be working…

… but you know how it is 🙂 As it’s warmish and there’s little wind, I thought it would be a good time to spray the inside of the new pod. I’d also been thinking about strengthening a couple of holes in the pod floor that take the main suspension bolts. I didn’t do it when I did the other work, so as this would be the last chance, I thought it would be a good idea to epoxy in a bit of fibreglass mat as backing to each one.

I then cast my eye over a large sheet of glass fibre that someone had stuck inside the nose of the pod to ‘strengthen’ it, that you can see here. It was a bit tatty around the edges and I thought I might as well grind them down a bit to improve the appearance. And lucky I did. As soon as the abrasive pad touched it, it was obvious that the sheet hadn’t been properly fixed in at all and when I shoved a chisel under its edge, it began to lift off. Turns out that it had been stuck on over paint – you can get away with it with epoxy if you abrade the surface first but it’s a definite no-no with polyester, and especially if you try to lay it onto shiny paint 😯

In the end the whole sheet just came straight out and with a bit of cleaning up using a rotary wire brush, the appearance of the inside of the pod nose was greatly improved. And as the sheet was effectively doing very little or nothing, there was definitely no loss in ‘strength’. After adding the backing pieces to the holes that I mentioned previously, I then gave the nose section a light coat of epoxy resin. This will stabilise it and will also give it a better look, not that you will be able to see very much once the pod is fitted with the panel in place. So the time wasn’t wasted and when I eventually do get around to spraying it (sigh…), it will end up a much better looking job. Here’s how the pod ended up.

The resin I used has already hardened but I doubt that I’ll get much more done today as the wind looks like it’s picking up a bit. Have to wait and see. But the good bit is that while I’ve been typing this, I’ve taken a nice little order over the phone as well. Good stuff eh 😀

An evening footnote to finish this post off. Late this afternoon when I turned the pod over, I found that the chisel I’d used to prise the tatty old sheet of fibreglass from inside the pod’s nose had pierced the fibreglass in a small area. Not to worry – it didn’t take long to epoxy a small patch of fibreglass mat on the inside and then do a repair on the outside. After I’d checked that it had cured and rubbed it down, I decided that as the wind was still pretty calm, I’d prime the interior of the pod. It came up OK but I thought it better to leave the top coat until tomorrow so the primer can harden before I give it a light rub down to key the surface. So not a bad way to the end the day.