How would you finish this console?

Oh c'mon, I've already got most of the supplies, I want to make this thing work! That's a last resort at this point. Also those plugs are only pressure fitted in there, I'd have to find a way to secure them permanently. If I'm going that far, then I might as well glass them in permanently and do the full deal.

 

Stephan, whoever told you to use matt should come and help you do this. I HATE that stuff and only use it for resin-rich bedding or alternating with woven roving.
Fleece? You are losing me - you mean an old pair of pajamas or bedsheet? It will not end a particularly good surface and how will you deal with concavity?
HEY, somebody better at this - feel free to step in here...
Yes, Hoyt. That is my new rudder. Looks like a sailboat rudder, huh? No, I don't know how it will work but will find out in a few days. I needed more fairing putty (the brown you see under the last few laminates of cloth) and it ended up taking more time and will not have as high of glass content as if I had used cloth the entire half inch of wall thickness. Difficult-to-control biax is the only other material that made any sense for this, in retrospect. I considered engineering layup for anticipated stresses but figured it was enuf overbuilt as it was - Besides, I want it to shear off at the bottom of the post if I whack something that gets past my keel and prop.

 

Maybe you're right Mark, I'll consider having another go at it with cloth alone. How many layers and what weights? One thing I noticed about the first attempt is it was way thicker than it needs to be... so maybe 2-3 layers of cloth only this time around? It really doesn't need to be thick.

 

Alright, I have one more idea I'm going to try. I was messing around a little bit the other day, and it occurred to me that with a lot of work, I could feasibly just create a plywood cap for the console and then fiberglass that over for protection and paint.

The problem is there are so many confusing and complex angles, getting this to look just right would be very difficult.

So I have another idea. I'm going to make a frame (using strips of plywood) around the perimeter of the console, which will be be the outside edge of the cap. It should be much easier to get those angles right because I can use smaller pieces, a compound miter saw, and there's much less material to get lined up properly.

Once I have the frame completed (and tacked together firmly with wood glue, nails), I'll wrap it in fleece and coat the fleece in resin. The fleece will be the smooth surface. When that cures, I can flip the part upside down and reinforce with a couple layers of mat for strength/durability.

In the end, I should have a solid, smooth surface from the stretched fleece that I can simply sand down and paint, with minimal filling necessary.

Make sense? I think the fleece makes a lot of sense because it would let me deal with the compound shapes while retaining smoothness, and gives me a surface that I can reinforce from the BACK instead of in the front. I've done plenty of research and it's been used to make all sorts of speaker boxes and car parts that come out looking really smooth when painted. I found a case once where someone made a boat center console in the same manner, but can't find it anymore... it came out beautiful though.