Resin or fiberglass each piece before stitch and glue?

Howdy and hello everybody. I am a new deck swab'n, plank walk'n, land lubber to boat building and have been looking around on different sites and places but can't find a answer to my question. I reckon if someone was to build a stitch and glue boat, what are the pros, cons and other various things, is it a good idea of fiber-glassing (resin or both resin and fiber glass) the pieces first before you stitch and glue the boat together? What I'm thinking from looking around is the resin and fiberglass is used as a way of making the boat more rigid and keeping the water out. If it helps keep the water out, wouldn't it be a good idea to do them separately so as a way to isolate the water from traveling from wood piece to wood piece, therefore not having to replace more? Any info is greatly appreciated and thank you.

 

Welcome.
My vote is for all of the above.

The final sealing and sheathing must be done after assembly.
Panel edges are far easier to seal when not butted up. The inside of closed chambers could be impossible to coat after assembly. Sealing of glassing full sheets of paneling may be more efficient than processing small parts.. A flimsy panel would benefit from the support offered be pry sheathing on one or both sides. Whereas an inherently stuff one might become insufficiently flexible if preskined. A project may be best assembled from some fully sheathed, some partially finisd and some raw panels.

 

Thank you for mentioning the option of both. Meant to add that to the poll. Yes, I agree that some parts would be good to wait on so you can bend them for flexibility as well as the hard to reach closed areas.

 

With some experience, you can "pre-prep" things, like applying a couple of coats of straight epoxy, maybe even pre-'glassing some areas, though I see a lot of pitfalls if you're not an experienced laminator. Joints in particular will prove most problematic, as you really want to get the areas within them well saturated with resin, then a thickened resin, before a fabrics go down.

A light sheathing of fabric doesn't add much strength and stiffness to a plywood panel. If you want to do this, you'd need a significant thickness of fabric or use other methods such as foam stringers, bonded on and covered with a knitted fabric. I don't do any pre-treating taped seam builds, as I find it much easier to treat this as a single process itself. On some multiple part build ups I may treat end grain or hidden areas, that would be more difficult after assembly.