Debeautification

Another thing I've learned about building a boat is that things tend to get less pretty -- not more -- as time goes by.  Let me give you some examples:

1)  You gaze admiringly over 4x8 sheets of sleek, marine-grade mahogany plywood, then proceed to cut, scarf, epoxy and sand it into submission.

2) You cut out the pieces, fit them on the frame, and proceed to glue them together using enormous, unsightly lumps of a peanut-butter-like thickened epoxy.

3)  You sand the hull until smooth and beautiful, layer on neat epoxy until the surface shines, then you sand the holy hell out of it.  And adding insult to injury, you then add dark brown-colored thickened epoxy in some places to smooth things out.

4)  Finally, the whole thing is sanded.  Epoxied.  Sanded.  Epoxied.  Sanded.  Faired.  Sanded.  Sheathed with fiberglass.  Epoxied.  Sanded.  Epoxied.  Faired.  Sanded.  Then you add the primer until the whole thing is a very respectable-looking white.

Can you guess what happens next?

The damn thing isn't smooth enough in some places, so you sand it some more until it looks like ...

And that's what I call debeautification.