More Foam on the Starboard Float - Cleaning up the Outboard Half

Henny contacted me last week regarding the ridges in the foam on the first half. He chewed me out a little bit for not pressing the foam into place well enough and that it would come back to bite me later on with the fairing... He's right, I knew it and really couldn't argue with him, so I took his well founded advice and went back through the float reheating some sections of foam to push them down a little more where I could and secure the foam better in other locations.
I also removed two pieces of foam near the aft section and replaced them entirely since I wasn't happy with them at all. The rest of the float was really pretty good, it was only near the big curve section that I had problems getting it pushed down enough.

In the meantime, I also got some advice from Phill (currently building an F-85 - his 15th boat from what I recall). He's a great guy with a ton of advice. Anyway, regarding sanding down the foam he suggested a Straight Line Sander with 36-grit. I like new tools, so without hesitation (and much delight) I went on over to Amazon and made the purchase. When it arrived I thought it might be overkill, but a light touch and an hour or so later I had a pretty good looking float half without removing too much material. I found the sander to be really easy to control and am very happy with the results.

One word about that though (switching gears here for a second), I did read a bit about the cheaper versions made in China and lots of advice on how they should be avoided. So you can imagine how upset I was after my new sander started bogging down after only 20 minutes of use! I tried blowing it clean and putting in a few more drops of oil to no avail. It would work really well for about 15 seconds then start bogging down again. I thought surely I'd have to return it so I let it sit for a while to take care of some other things.
When I got back to it, I hit the start trigger and felt some cold liquid spray against my hand and thought for sure it was adding insult to injury by spitting oil all over the place, but after a few seconds I realized it was simply some water from the compressor. This made me start thinking that this might be the root of my problem. I did have a water separator on hand that was purchased some time back for a piece of spray equipment. I plugged that into my compressor and after using the sander for another 40 minutes the problem never showed up again. When I was done for the day, I went over to the water separator and opened up the drain valve to release almost 1/4 cup (60ml) of water! I guess I'm writing all this to say that those "cheap" sanders might work just fine if you ran clean, dry air through them...

Starboard Float Outboard half after sanding

This was the BEFORE picture (before replacing the two planks and sanding the rest)

This is the AFTER picture,
I should have got a bit closer, but you can readily tell how much smoother the foam is.

Ingersoll-Rand (IRT315) Straight Line Sander.
Also, referred to as an "Air File"

Water Separator installed mid-stream. The blue hose goes to the sander

Anyway, the Starboard float is coming along with the aft section completed and the bow section nearly done. I'm having a much better experience with the foam on this half as the pieces are fitting better against the battens and I'm not spending as much time on it. So again, it really just comes down to a learning curve. I find it best to get that big curve bent mostly into place before inserting the foam plank into the mold. If you do that, it's easy to push it into position while it's still hot and then secure it before moving on to the rest of the plank. Much less drama that way.

You can see the planks are laying down better this time

Almost done with forward section

Pre-cut pieces for the WingNet Lashing Tube section.
I cut enough material to pre-fabricate this area on both floats

If you look closely, you can see a small piece of foam sitting on top of the lashing tube.
I was using this set up to determine what angles would work best for the cut and how thick the second piece of foam would need to be.

One problem I am having now is that I'm down to my last sheet of foam...
The Manufacturer is particularly proud of their Core-Cell product and the pricing reflects this fact.

$$ Uggh! $$