There is only one fill coat of epoxy on the boat right now, and the black graphite coats need to go on the bottom. The advantage to putting the strakes on now is that they, and their fillets, will all be coated at the same time as the boat itself ...hopefully saving a little work and giving a nicer looking overall product when I'm done.

The second picture shows the transition from the 1/2" thick strake along the keel to the 1/4" thick strake that goes up the bow. I scarfed in second layer of 1/4" ply where the two join and used a low-angle block plane to shape it into a nicely curving tapered fill.

The second picture shows the very first fastener that will stay in the boat. I worried that given the hard bend that the auxiliary spray rail takes nearest the bow, that I might want a back-up screw left here. While marine paint is pretty good, and epoxy is nearly waterproof, note that if a boat is left in the water for a long time (or spends winters in the rain here in Oregon), that the wood can absorb a bit of moisture. In this case, it would tend to make the splash rail straighten out. The silicon bronze screw is fine for leaving in forever. Note that I did use screws for installing these, but I removed all but the last one once the epoxy cured.

The second picture shows the boat after the second (and last) coat of this special epoxy treatment. NOTE: The SB-112 epoxy cures quicker than the general purpose with #2 Medium hardener, so don't mix more than one small batch at a time. It also does not seem to wet out the surface as well, so do yourself a favor and pre-sand with 120-grit before applying this epoxy. Make sure you do not use felt pens or pencils to mark the boat either, as the epoxy will not wet those spots out very well. Make sure you fill any and all pinholes since this epoxy seems to prefer surrounding the hole without wetting it out instead. The bottom line is that with a little preparation, you get a great UV inhibited tough surface that levels out smooth and nice. The SB-112 appears to be a very tough epoxy as well.

The last picture shows the UHMW strips screwed onto the strakes. The leading edges on the side strake pieces were cut to about 45-degrees to match the angle of the underlying strakes. In all cases, the 1/2" ply sacrificial strakes on the boat and the UHMW applied to them were tapered pretty good prior to installation. In this case, the near-1" thick stack had a total of about 6" tapered (6:1 ratio) for smooth water flow off the aft ends, especially in front of the prop. On the fairbody strake, I only put UHMW on the boat to within about 9 feet of the top tip of the bow since I am not going to paint until the boat is upright. Once the boat has been painted, I'll add the last piece of UHMW up the fairbody to the tip of the bow. Note that in all cases, I used Sikaflex 291 adhesive sealent for the installation of the UHMW plastic. I rough-sanded the sealent side of the plastic with 60-grit to give it lots of 'teeth' and then shot the sealent into each (predrilled with tapered bit) screw hole, and laid a thin single bead of the sealent down the centerline of each strake. The plastic was predrilled with my drill press. NOTE: Do not countersink enough to let the head drop below the surface of the plastic. The plastic will spread out when the screw tightens and the screw head will end up below the surface anyway. Try a few test drillings/screwings on some scrap to get tuned in.