The next step is fiberglassing the hull. As I have never done this, the process is a bit intimidating. If this gets messed up I'm not sure how you recover. The other issue is that the temperatures are rising and the epoxy will start to gel up much quicker, so you have to work quickly.
Before the glass cloth is applied, the entire hull was sealed with epoxy resin. This was put on with a foam roller and allowed to harden. The plywood on the hull absorbs the resin, so by sealing it first, it ensures that when the cloth is applied it doesn't get starved for resin.
I decided to fiberglass the hull in 5 sections. The two bottom halves, each side and the transom. The reason for the sections is to have a workable amount of area for epoxy and manageable amount of cloth.
Here is a picture showing the first bottom section covered with cloth. As the surface is fairly flat, the cloth stays in place. You can see the other side is sealed with epoxy which darkens the plywood. There is also a border of duct tape that is used to define the final outline of the cloth.
The next step is saturating the cloth with epoxy resin. I mixed a 16 oz batch and poured it on and used a 6" plastic squeegee to spread it around. The squeegee works well because it lets you press the resin into the cloth and also scrap the excess resin off the cloth. The goal is to saturate the cloth but not have excess pooling on the surface. When saturated, the cloth becomes transparent. If there are white spots, it means you need more resin. I needed to make two 16oz plus a 12oz batch for this first section. I was a little strong on the resin because I did the other half with 8oz less resin.
You can clearly see the duct tape outline and how the cloth become transparent. The cloth is cut larger so that the other pieces will overlap. After the resin sets for 3-4 hours, the excess can be trimmed. Using a sharp knife and following the duct tape line, the cloth is cut and removed along with the tape.
You can also see that the weave of the cloth is still visible. This is good because it indicates the cloth is saturated and there is no excess epoxy. After this epoxy sets up a few more hours, I rolled on another layer of resin to start to fill this weave.
Since there are 5 pieces of cloth to apply, each piece must be allowed to set about 24 hours before the next piece can be applied. The pieces are overlapped, so the other necessary step is that the edge of the bottom cloth must be sanded to a fine taper so the edge is not noticeable. Using the duct tape to make a clean cut line helps the tapering process since you have a clean line to work with. I used a random orbital sander to sand the edges and taper the cloth.
Here you can see the clean cut line going up and down and the sanded tapered edge going across. The piece on the right was applied over the tapered edge. I will taper this sharp edge before cloth is applied to this surface, which happens to be the transom.
When all the surfaces are covered, the exposed edges will be tapered and then more resin applied to the entire surface. The weave must be filled with epoxy and a few additional layers applied so that final sanding will smooth the resin and not hit the cloth.
The side pieces must be held in position with masking tape before the resin is applied. The resin must also be applied with a foam roller as you cannot pour and work it on vertical surfaces. I bought 7" rollers and cut them in half to have a workable 3.5" roller for this purpose.
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