Boat Glassing

I put another 10 hours or so into the boat project, but there's not much to photograph. Pretty much looks like the last photo. The difference is that there's now a layer of fiberglass on the bottom, including the stern and bow transoms.

It took a lot of digging around the basement, but I found a trash bag of 6oz fiberglass cloth. Once upon a time I built and repaired canoes and kayaks. The glass cloth is three feet wide and long enough to span the length of the boat twice. It covers from several inches down the sides and overlaps in the center of the boat.

When I lay down fiberglass and epoxy, there are always a few puckers and bubbles. Over the years I've discovered it's easier to sand them out and patch them later. Working with wet glass drives me nuts. As soon as one pucker is smoothed out, another is formed somewhere else. All the time, the resin is slowly hardening, so the clock is running.

Today I did some sanding and repair, but there were fewer problems than I feared. While working on the boat, UPS showed up with more resin and a roll of 9oz fiberglass tape. That will reinforce the seams.

Between the fiberglass and thicker plywood than what the plans called for, the boat will be a tad heavier than some builds. At least the weight is down low where it can help a tiny bit with stability.

The resin is a two part mix with a 2:1 ratio. They are poured and mixed into clear containers with volume measures built in. The nice plastic container I first used broke, so now I'm using a mason jar. Like much of this boat project, I'm using what I have around the house.

Some people like to sand until they get a perfectly smooth finish. I did that one time -on a canoe that I then took through white water rapids. After that my sanding got a lot less finicky. My boats will get dinged and scratched. They get used and abused. Perfect finishes are for show boats, not play and working boats.

-Sixbears