After paddling this morning, I worked on my kit boat a bit. Even though I was much more careful laying down the plastic wrap yesterday, I also used a lot more epoxy, so I still had a lot of epoxy on the “wrong” side to try to scrape down with a cabinet scraper and sandpaper block. As well as that, I also had to spend a lot of time trying to cut down the sides to shave off epoxy on the side (without cutting off any wood) with a carpet knife. It was time consuming work, but mostly it went ok – I think I cut down through the epoxy too far in one place and contacted the fiberglas tape. I also had one place on a very narrow piece (on panel 3) where the tape came right up for about half its width. I’m worried about that, and I wonder if I can glue that back down at some point where I have some spare epoxy. I’m going to have panel 3 out in the next step when I reinforce the bow deck panels, so I’ll have a go then.
After finishing the left side, I staked down the right side panels and taped and glued them. I tried a few different tricks – like to get a much flatter surface below some of the big seams, I nailed them onto one of the temporary forms wrapped in plastic wrap. Hey, by the time I’m finished I’ll probably know how to build this thing! I wonder if I should do another one after I’m done this one?
I also mentioned that I was getting concerned that the mylar sheets were getting a bit ratty? I discovered that you can peel off some of the dried epoxy, and that makes it a lot smoother. So they might do for the fourth side as well.
My first glassing jobs looked pretty awful; tons of wrinkles, voids, and loose threads. You seem to be getting the hang of it. By the time you’re done, the joints will look perfect. One controversial tip is to hit the wood with a quick spray of 3M 77 adhesive and stick the cloth/tape down with that prior to applying the epoxy. Supposedly makes it easier to get the resin on without wrinkling the cloth. It’s controversial because some insist that the surfaces won’t absorb the resin properly in the presence of the adhesive, other guys say the resin wets out the materials just fine and the adhesive doesn’t cause any problems. I’ve never tried it, but I thought I’d let you know.
Norm would be finished the “assembaly” by now and would be troweling on the dark stain…