And then there is more sanding

[Oyster]

Well lets go this route. I am in the process of building up coats of varnish on the solid veneers of the bookmatched transom.

I cannot figure out what I am doing wrong when using the add attachment link and having it show up twice.

[Charlie Jones]

Mike- you aren't doing anything wrong. When you embed the pictures in the text, it shows them twice. Does it for every body.

[Ken_Potts]

And you certainly aren't doing anything wrong on that transom - Shiny... 

[capt jake]

At first I saw two of each picture, now only one of each.

[Charlie Jones]

Yeah- me too. And when I posted pics inside text it did the double pic to me too. Wonder if it still will if I go look at that?

[Oyster]

Lets try it again.

This is the rails on the 12 footer. I did not hit insert attachment, just hit the add more at the bottom of the posting area and added the second one and hit post.

[capt jake]

Hmmmm? ??? Those two boats look the same! ;D

[Oyster]

Hmmmm? ??? Those two boats look the same! ;D

Nope, thats the grandchild of the grandfather that wears the transom. ;D ;D

[Oyster]

Well the transom is glued in place with the well all finished, ribs are rough cut and in place awaiting the lap position, and the bottom will not be glued in place. I normally would have glued the bottom up and flipped it over. But with the massive size of the hull, this way I cut cut the ribs and secure them in place which in turn stiffens up the sides for bending and much easier hanging the planks downward instead of dealing with the flare. The boat is also closer to the floor when working by myself, and not flying around in the air. The planks are just under 23 feet long, plus or minus.

[capt jake]

This is too cool!   Nice work.

[Oyster]

Well after all the fasteners went in and things were in order, the bottom for this one gets a heavy coating of glass. I used 1808 Biaxall, and topped it off with a layer of 4 oz. finish cloth. This boat will take some additional abuse with sand. I also wanted a bit more weight for several reasons, but its of no value in this discussion.

I leave my overlap up and run the resin along the edge and work down behind the glass. This keeps me from loosing much if any resin in the vertical layup. I also wet the sides out very sparingly as I have resin from the flat area. This helps stick the glass to the sides and you can work out any wrinkles without  wearing it as you go along, too.

This shows the heavy grained fabric that comes out quite nicely with using a short nap roller. In the beginning before I start, I mix up some resin and hardener and roll the roller in it. The after saturation, I then roll the excess out and hang the frame and roller with a roller handle over a stick so the roller head is angled down from the handle and let cure. I make sure the roller is starved with any extra resin blend. I let dry. A point of note, don't let the frame get into the mix because it will not work after the resin has cured. Then I use this to roll out the glass. I also use the wet from the under side in the initial layup method. This method also keeps air from being trapped between the surface and the glass. After I finish this initial roll out, I let sit for a while and then roll it and check it for saturation again. If need be I mix a little more and roll into the glass.

At this time I will apply the finish cloth on the glass and again roll this out smoothe.

I then repeat the wetting process with small amounts of resin untill I get to my likings.

This shows the results which will only require some fairing along the overlap seam and about two fill coats for the fabric without even touching the glass with a grinder or sander until ready for my barrier coat and paint.

I get a semi double chine of glass at the bottom area since these boats sees a lot of sandy beaches. Another point of note, is that your corners need to have some additional redius so the matt and resin in the turn does not stand proud and create any voids along that edge. In some sailboats, its important to also state that round chines are not favorable like the more pronounced hard ones in the hard chine designs. So with them, I do go back and use some high density filler to minimize the round area.

[Charlie Jones]

Nicely done Mike. I for sure know the work involved in those pictures.

[Frank Hagan]

This shows the heavy grained fabric that comes out quite nicely with using a short nap roller. In the beginning before I start, I mix up some resin and hardener and roll the roller in it. The after saturation, I then roll the excess out and hang the frame and roller with a roller handle over a stick so the roller head is angled down from the handle and let cure. I make sure the roller is starved with any extra resin blend. I let dry. A point of note, don't let the frame get into the mix because it will not work after the resin has cured. Then I use this to roll out the glass. I also use the wet from the under side in the initial layup method. This method also keeps air from being trapped between the surface and the glass. After I finish this initial roll out, I let sit for a while and then roll it and check it for saturation again. If need be I mix a little more and roll into the glass.

So you take a short nap roller, roll it in epoxy, make sure its almost "dry" and not over saturated and then let it set up on the roller?  Do you let it cure completely?  I'm guessing this works like those "fin rollers" you see that are supposed to assist you in getting bubbles out of the glass.  I'm imagining that the roller is hard and slightly "spiky" where the fibers are sticking up.

[Oyster]

Yes Frank, I let it dry to touch. Its important that you do not have needle [points or highs since they will snag the fabric or will create an uneven roller head. Let me ramble on a bit, going around my elbow to get to my thumb. In the beginning of doing some composite building with foams and some hulls that require the combination of two unlike components for its strength, I found that many of these layups would indeed end up with the issues of air and excessive amounts of resin when just rolling out resins with a roller in the beginning. In foam core layups without a vacumn bag process, I also would lather up the foam with some slurry mix, barely blending in some cabosil.

I began using sheetrock trowels and concrete finishing ones to spread and compress and minimize these issues. But on decks inside of skiffs, this was not a method that I could use since I could not reach most of the areas over the rails.

In matt instances without excessive amounts of resin, which was used in many of the redos of fliberglass decks, as a rule new rollers do not work in the wetout. The fin ones are fine but do not deal with moving large amounts of resin across a larger area in fabric wetouts in a uniform manner as well as the larger diameter hardened ones, which I learned could do when using faster hardeners in warmer climates.

Also I found myself epoxy sensitive and require to be way away from it now even though in some cases I must use it and will swap brands from time to time and hardeners in a attempt to fool my skin and minimize the issues that come with the epoxy rash, too. This is another resin I switched over from the trowels and found this method a much more user friendly method for me, which the roller frames can have the long handles which also gives some some added leverage to the ends.

Keep in mind that less is better when it comes to the resin to glass ratio, meaning that resin actually weakens the layup when in excess and has been known to fatigue over time in some high stress areas causing cracks too in the finish work and in some delamination. The fine line of satuation is also really critical now for several reasons, one being the costs involved of the products.

Another issue for me is the redo of the surface on cured resin. For me personally, I use the slowest hardener even in the dead of winter time. In these larger layups as I get older and wiser I use tropical hardeners if avaliable with the resins because I can recoat several times and work out any outgassing issues in climate changes from daytime to nighttimes, and continue on with the green stage of resin and finally on most bottoms I also have had great success with the barrier coats right on the green resins without touching the glass surface at all.

Of course trim edges may need to be faired in sometimes. If you look at the line along the glass work on the side to the first lap, you will see a color change which is the biaxall is short and the finish cloth overlays the glass and with the matt and rough cut edge of the biaxall, I can compress the ruffled fabric to make that transition without having air pockets with the height difference  created by the glass thickness. In this case also I did not want to also have high areas at the gain ends of the hull either.

The key to all of this is the proper dry fitting of your glass and keeping a good pair of scissors handy when rolling out my glass onto the wetted surface and cutting any streemers away so the glass does not continue to unravel causing issues of highs and lows in the surface that without additional fairing, shows up under topcoats too.

I know many subscribe to the idea of wet down through glass, so all this maybe not apply to these folks. I personally do not like that method because I hate and literally dispise wasted resin and dealing with runs and pinhole air pockets. This method is a combination of wet up through the glass for about 90 percent of the job and then a small finish coat to finish the wetout when the starved strands show up. I also in the initial roll out will just allow the glass to sit for a bit and the resin will continue to wet areas that appear to be dry or semi dry before applying larger amounts than needed only to remove the excess from some runs or puddles that will form. I want to see a nice uniform color change in the print, all of it, in the initial satuation and wetout, nothing more or nothing less..

This is my ramble and only my opinion, and may not reflect others peoples observations and methods that work for them.