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Author Topic: fibre glassing my schooner  (Read 2609 times)

howie55

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fibre glassing my schooner
« on: June 24, 2009, 11:25:53 pm »

Hi Guys
I am now ready to fibre glass the hull of my schooner with Ripmax SP Epoxy, I have decided to do it in two halves using a fine glass cloth, well it did sound easy, but as with everything there is a technique and I did not know it or maybe I thought I did, anyway here is how it went.
first I made a jig to hold the boat upside down by using the mast hole positions as a location, then having sanded the hull to a  reasonable finish, remembering the single planked  hull is constructed with 1/16"thick x 3/8 wide planks, I painted the first half of the hull in a mixture of 3 resin and 1 hardener and laid the cloth straight onto the wet resin my first act was to brush more resin on as I smoothed out the cloth, this seemed to work initially but then as I looked back from the middle section to see the first area had started to bubble, now panic takes over as I try to lay the rest of the cloth without adding more resin this worked and the cloth stayed flat, now I had to go back and try to remove the bubbles I could flatten them by stabbing with a dry brush but they returned in minutes I tried rolling them flat with a small roller this increased the problem, the epoxy has a 24 hour drying time so I spent the evening stabbing the bubbles whilst it cured, going to bed thinking I had ruined the boat. Next morning showed half of the side full of small bubbles the last half of the side smooth.  After smoothing the edges of the cured resin I turned the boat round and painted the other side of the hull and dry brushed the cloth on it worked now wait for the resin to cure before adding more
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tigertiger

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Re: fibre glassing my schooner
« Reply #1 on: June 26, 2009, 03:55:47 am »

That is a superb hull.
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andygh

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Re: fibre glassing my schooner
« Reply #2 on: June 26, 2009, 10:54:14 am »

Looks like you've used cloth rather than tissue, it's much harder to get cloth to conform to rounded shapes (much more rubbing down to do too <:()
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Bunkerbarge

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Re: fibre glassing my schooner
« Reply #3 on: June 27, 2009, 08:28:01 am »

Although the pictures do not show the greatest of detail the finish certainly does look very good.  It has obviously taken quite a bit of work to get to that point but I'm sure after rubbing down you will have a superb hull.  If you have any bubbles remaining you will have to cut them out with say a Dremmel and pour small quantities of resin into the holes. These areas weill then smooth down and you'll never know there was a bubble there.
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Islander1951

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Re: fibre glassing my schooner
« Reply #4 on: June 27, 2009, 05:53:02 pm »

Just got back from long weekend - Warm wood first - then apply epoxy. Otherwise wood will "out-gas" and leave lots of bubbles and pinholes in resin surface.

Quick explanation - when you apply resin and "then" warm the wood, the wood "out-gases" and bubbles of sir from wood cell move toward surface. If you heat wood first, and allow a few moments to start cooling, the reverse takes place and the warm wood will actually "pull" the resin into wood pores (instead of air) thus helping to minimize bubbles.

If you do happen to get small, surface bubbles, breath slowly across them as carbon dioxide in exhaled breath will "pop" them. We used to joke with the big boat builders about having to give their boats a "blow-job" after applying resin! 
   
   I found the above on the web somewhere, and saved it. I think that it was by Dick Lemke, but don't remember where it was.
However, it might be relevant, and that's a very nice looking hull.   Good luck with it.   :-)

                            Islander51
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Islander1951

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Re: fibre glassing my schooner
« Reply #5 on: June 27, 2009, 06:27:52 pm »

I just found it--- look here:

            http://www.rcsailtalk.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1998&start=15

                               Islander51
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tigertiger

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Re: fibre glassing my schooner
« Reply #6 on: July 01, 2009, 04:58:10 am »

***Topic tidied up***
References to beer glasses are now in my schooner - beer glassing thread in Chit Chat
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