The thought of fiberglassing the hull had been on my mind for a while, having never done anything like this before I was nervous. I decided to use 2 layers of West 450g Biaxal with a 300g Biaxal as the top layer, this gave me the required strength for the plywood I used.
I made a stand for the rolls of fabric and used the dining room table to measure out the required lengths as I don't have much space in the boat tent!!!
I decided to do the transom first as a bit of a practice before starting on the hull, my sister was visiting for the weekend and offered to help. We placed the fabric on the transom first and cut it to size, I put some pen marks on the corners to act as a guide for when we would need to lay it back in position. We wetted out the ply first and then carefully placed the fabric on the transom using the pen marks as guides. We then applied more epoxy with a roller and went over it several times to get any air out.
It was now time to do the hull, I was hoping to get the two layers of 450g Biaxal on in one day but I knew it would be difficult so I got some friends round to help. Thanks to my sister, Peter, David and Iain for all your help.
We wetted out the wood first and then starting at the transom working towards the bow applied the first layer, it soaked up a lot of epoxy and mixing it was a full time job for two people to keep up. With limited head room in the tent it was a bit of a reach to do the bottom of the boat. The first layer went on well and was finished by lunch time.
We started the second layer after a short lunch break and this proved a little bit more difficult, the first layer was very tacky by this time and as soon as we placed the second layer of cloth in position it was then very difficult to move or adjust the position of it. It took a little time to get the technique right but we soon discovered the best method was to apply more epoxy to the second layer of cloth before trying to move it into position.
We managed to finish both layers in one day, I had originally planned to use peel ply but by the time we had finished it was late in the day and the transom that we started first had already gone off so I decided to call it a day.
I left it for a few days to set fully and then sanded it down ready for the top layer of 300g, there where a few high spots that I needed to take down so I don't think it was much of an issue that I did not use the peel ply in the end. It took me a few hours to sand the hull down but apart from that it's looking good.
The final layer went on really well as we did not have the issues with the hull being tacky like when we applied the second layer.
I added an extra layer of 600g fabric around the bow for extra strength as well as a piece on the bottom where the keel will sit.
Very happy to be at this stage and glad the fiberglassing is all done for now.
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