Laying fiberglass cloth on a weekender?

[tomstock]

Went to work on the boat today, and almost started the glass the hull, but then realized my cloth is 38" wide. In the video the cloth seems to be one large sheet on each side of the keel. Maybe I missed something in the video. I can't look right now, the daugher has say over the VCR.

How should I lay the cloth? I could run one sheet lengthwise on the bottom of the hull, and another around the side both trimmed to overlap 1 inch, or I could cut 4 or 5 smaller peices and lay them perpendicular to the keel. I'm sort of leaning for choice #1.

Is one inch ok for the overlap?

opinions?

Thanks

Tom

[Craig]

Lay it the long way and one inch is fine. I suggest you over lap the sides to the bottom of the hull at the chine.. That is where you will get the wear. You will have to weasle the edges some going around the hull curve there. Happy glassing.

[Barry Pyeatt]

What you missed is that they used wider cloth. But there is nothing wrong with using 38" material.

A one inch overlap is fine, I too would cover the sides in one piece and then overlap at the chine on the bottom edge. Glass doesn't offer much protection against chaffing but two layers there would be better than just one and offer some additional coverage where it would help rather than higher up on the side where it wouldn't do much of anything.

[Charlie Jones]

Definitely choice number 1. I usually like a tad more overlap than 1 inch but that really should be enough. I usually use about 2 inches each side of the chine, then feather back to just shy of the chine .

Lapping at the chine lets you hide the lap quite easily. Fitting pieces across the hull means you must overlap, then grind the lap down so it's smooth and doesn't show. Lotta work sometimes. Much simpler to do the lapping at a natural break such as a chine, cabin top or deck edge for that matter.

This isn't a Weekender but you can see how I lay the cloth. The half round things you see are lead weights I use to hold the cloth in position while I spread the resin. I resin out to them, pick them up then wet out to the edge of the cloth. In this particular shot, the bottom has already been glassed from the centerline out to the chine.

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[tomstock]

Thanks for the great info. ok, so I can glass from the keel to the chine, and then come back later and glass the sides, overlapping the botom? How long, and how should I prep the earlier glassed area.

If I have to do it all at once, thats ok too.

[Charlie Jones]

I always try to get it done as quickly as possible. You are much better off laying the next glass in on green epoxy. I did that entire boat in a day and a half - both sides of the bottom and the transom.

I glass the first part- in this case the bottom. When it's cured enough to work I use a surform to knock down the roughest parts of the edge. Then as soon as I can I use an ROS with 60 or 80 grit and feather the edge. It doesn't have to be absolutely perfect. As long as there aren't any large gaps or bumps. The new glass will cover small imperfections.

Then I come back with the next part- in this case, the hull sides. Again, as soon as possible I knock off the rough edges with the surform , then use the ROS. The quicker you get to it the easier it is to sand that edge to a feather. This time it needs to be a bit nicer, but that isn't hard to do. Then I come in with the first fill coat and lay those in as quickly as possible.

On that hull (a B and B Princess 22) I glassed and filled in three days. Three pretty long days, but three days.

[tomstock]

Thanks, will let you know how it turns out.

[tdrown]

I used overlapping sections of cloth to glass the boat. Overlap by a few inches.

[Florin {VACATIONER}]

We overlapped as well. Our cloth is 60" wide I believe, but the Vac is larger. We overlapped about 5" on average. I was told if you overlap wide it'll be easier to fair the "bump". I seemed to work faily good. Since we used poly resin, we were lucky to have the option of buying the unwaxed resin which is meant for layups because it doesn't cure 100%. This way you don't have to sand between layers. The last coat of resin was the waxed kind which makes the lower layers to harden like concrete. You could put 57 layers on this way and never have to worry about sanding between coats. It worked out well for us. Most of the builders are against using poly resin though... So I'd better shut up on this one before I open another can of worms hehehe.

Florin