Tape it all together and you turn yourself around...

It has happened.

Ski season ended sunday at Red Mtn where I ski, so its time to go full time (30-40 hrs a week) on the boat. First day was a dooz.

Last week I piddled around a bit with the bow fillet. I was a tad uncomfy with the proposition as I had never made and external bow fillet. As it would turn out, it was a misconception that it would be difficult. With a little duct tape holding the drip-through, I filled the space betwixt the sides, and made what I feel to be a nice looking fillet.

You be the judge:



In profile, you can also see where I had to fill gaps on the side panels:



Finally, in context with the boat, and with your humble narrator's shadow:



All it really took was multiple layers laid as each one turned green, then when all was green, and hard, but not cured, I went out with the trusty sure-form and shaved it down to a respectable shape. Trick is definitely to add more material than you need, and shave it back down to what you want. Worked like a charm.

Now, on to the glassing!

Big breakfast, long deep breath, and out came the jugs of epoxy. I started with the centerline strips, which are 2 layers of tape staggered over the joint. Everything was precut earlier last week in order to save time at this phase. The pieces shortened up a bit when rolled, but the joy of this 45/45 biax is it just stretches and stretches. The initial wet-out was interesting as I had never worked with a fabric having such a voracious appetite for epoxy. Took about an hour to figure out what was dry, what was wet, and how much to put where. Once the curve leveled off, I was off to the races.

Laying up th centerline strips, I ran them about 18', then quit. I then laid the sides completely down in order to seal the edges of the chine strips under the doubled bow strip. Tidy glass equals less fairing work for lazy boat builders. I had made it through that 18' when Ron, my neighbor down the lake a ways, shows up wanting to know what I was working on. No sooner are we BSing about layups and his ideas for boats when I throw a set of gloves at him and put him to work!



Ron brought his glass roller with him. What a great tool! Above you can see how he is pressing the fabric into the epoxy we rolled on, and just dabbing a little in the wet spots really sucked it down tight to the wood. We switched to the wet method as it only really works well with two people. Between rolling out epoxy first, then a little wet out on top, then rolling it with that little bugger, we really cut down the amount of epoxy in the layup. No starved areas, everything wet out well.

Thanks Ron, I appreciated it!

An extra set of hands really sped up the process.

Here she is, taped up for the dance:



Pretty eh?

This is why I laid out the tape how and when I did, very tidy:



Two pics depicting my dry method layup (top) with Rons wet and rolled method (bottom):




You can see how much less epoxy is required.

Here is another example, the aft (right) section was done with a brush and squeegee, the bow (left) section with the roller on wet:



Much less epoxy.

All in all, we only used 3/4 of a gallon of epoxy for the entire exterior taping program. I am shooting for using even less on the interior as I will try to get some peel-ply and that roller for round 2. Less epoxy makes for a lighter boat!

Expect more rapid progress now that Im not pissing my days away in BC staring at a hillside. Wednesday should be grinding prep for sheet glass, and hopefully all the sheeting will be on by friday afternoon. Well, we hope, as it will be in the 70s and I might want to go fish.

E