new to boats - looking for resources

[Christina]

Hiya.

I am new to boats in general adn have just been given two professional fiberglass molds. Does anyone know of good webpages or articels that I can read to get started?

Thanks!

[buckknekkid]

I would say that this is the mother load. there are some very qualified members and a lot of good reading. Start by listing your own experience and then what you want to build. The molds, space and time are important

[Toot]

Originally Posted by buckknekkid

I would say that this is the mother load. there are some very qualified members and a lot of good reading. Start by listing your own experience and then what you want to build. The molds, space and time are important

No no no.. let her read articles first and get her head around what she is embarking on. THEN let her ask a bunch of questions once she's got the terminology and basics down.

I'm new here too and god knows I've spent a LOT of time looking up definitions and construction basics... even received some helpful links to clue me in to stuff I should already know.

Christina- My suggestion is, whenever you have any question, the first thing you should do is come up with a few applicable terms and then use the search function on this site to see what you can come up with. Quite often, whatever you are thinking about has been discussed countless times. In fact, I bet you could even search for "good sites" "beginning" "Boatbuilding" or something like that. Personally, I'm new here too so I don't really have a lot of favorites yet, otherwise I'd pass them along to you, but I've been surprised by the amount of information already available on this site if you just search around a little.

I'll be looking forward to answers to this question as well.

Cheers!

Ben

[fiberglass jack]

you will find more info here than anywhere else, lot of old pro's willing to give out lots of info some will love to show off and baffle you with a lot of jargon. working with fiberglass seems simple but you will run into all kinds of problems first you have to learn to prep your mould , the finsh boat will only look as good as the mold does even a finger print on the mould will transfar to the gelcoat on the boat, then you will have to learn to gel coat its important to get the right amount on this take a bit of practice and spraying gel is nothing like paint you have to keep a wet edge all the time and get it on level if its thin in spots it will alagate this will look like wrinkled old alagator skin and fixing it is a whole new skill you will also have to learn ,you will probally hand layup at first make sure you get all the air out of the resin dont want air bubbles just layup one layer of glass for the skin after its cured have a good look over you will find the odd air bubble just remove it with a knife or dremil but dont cut throu the gelcoat and into the mould if you do this just add a dab of gel into the area, have fun and play around with the first boat you make treat it as a learning process one thing about this site is you can post any problems you have a couple of photos to show the problem and you will be steered in the right direction, also you could place a add in say the craiglist and hire a fiberglass guy who is willing to show you some tricks

[mechatics]

dear if u want to know about basic terminology and design funda then just go to father google and search the word like "boat building method", "boat design factors" "hull design" etc . i am sure u would submerged with archimidiez laws as u gonna through this then carefully reading every forum here, take part in discussion, where u stuck i mean for example "transom", just search on forum or google about transom u will get all info, that's it and keep in mind " you need to add extra effort inorder to learn more,reaserach and self study will help you to discovered some new things."
raj