Step 8: Fiberglassing the Inside
As you can see above, I finally finished all the fillets, so it was time to fiberglass the inside. The outside of the hull gets fiberglassed with a big sheet of fiberglass cloth which covers it entirely. The inside, on the other hand, just gets a 3-4 inch wide strip of fiberglass tape down each seam. In addition, the bottom panels in the area where the cockpit will be gets fiberglassed with section of a sheet that I cut out before filleting.
After laying down the fiberglass and pressing it gently into the fillets (which were still wet), I just painted over it using a disposable brush and unthickened epoxy. I saturated the fiberglass completely but tried not to use more epoxy than needed. Also, I coated the exposed wood on the inside because the epoxy acts as a sealant.
As I did this step I discovered the one problem with doing this project in a building without doors or windows: Bugs! By 10 PM they were all over the place and I rushed to finish so I could get my newly coated surface under whatever protection my tarp system provided. In the future I will avoid doing any bulk application of epoxy after 4 o'clock. I think that the tarps did a pretty good job of protecting it but there were still quite a few casualties. Luckily this was only the inside so a few bugs add a certain character. Here is a picture of the boat under the tarp system I rigged up:
This website is a labor of love and I never expected anything in return. But if you want to show your appreciation while also helping the environment, then click through this link here to get to amazon.com the next time you plan on shopping there anyway. I will get a commission of 2.5-10% through their "associates program" and will donate 50% of that to the Sierra Club. Thanks, Tim
total page-views for the whole site since July 17, 2000.
|