Once I realized that my sponsons were too large (had I been paying better attention I would have figured this out prior to covering them with fiberglass!) my attention turned to what to do about them.
Regardless of the fix that I had in store for my unusually large sponsons, the first step was for them to be removed. A Dremel Tool with a cut-off does the trick just fine. Since I only used one layer of mat, the cut-off wheel zips through the glass with ease. I simply trace around the sponsons where they meet the hull sides and around the edges on the lateral borders.
With the sponsons cut, I simply used a flat head screw driver to pop the sponsons up and off. Now I had to make a decision of how to re-scale the new sponsons. The two options that I have for this repair is to either extend the sides of the hull about ¼ inch or to trim about ¼ inch off the very perimeter of my model. I go with my second option for this repair because it will help maintain the proportions of the hull as they currently are – which I am happy with.
Since the material that I have to remove is 1/8 mahogany, I put the wood cutting blade on my Dremel tool and start cutting. A high speed wood blade makes short work of this repair. Once the sides are trimmed, I go ahead and repeat the same procedures that I used to build the sponsons the first time – only this time I resized the buck stations and end up with a much more proportional looking sponson.
Happy Glassing
Steve
