Sea Sled madness. It’s in my brain.

Interesting. Well, I've got an angle grinder...

 

No. That is an implement of destruction.

 

As I've recently learned. When you said wire brush, my mind jumped to angle grinder with wire cup. Nope....

 

Hehe

 

However, if you want to flay all the glass off a large boat in an afternoon, I've got you covered.

 

I like the HF $20 oscillating tool and a $20 universal carbide blade for cutting glass...fyi

A utility knofe works on greener epoxy.

 

Hmm. I bought a pair of tin snips.

So, with this 18oz glass, can I place it on hard resin, and reliably saturate it from 1 side, or must I roll out the surface first, place glass on that, then roll more on the outside?

 

It will not wet from one side.

what I do is roll it off, dry fit, sharpie mark, and roll it back onto a tube after all my pieces are cut

Then I weigh or calculate the square yards of each piece and calc the weight of each piece.

You want to slow down here or you'll mess up.

so, let's say you have 3 pieces to get across the hull bottom and piece one is 7 square yards, piece two is 10 square yards and piece three is also 7 sqyds.

7x18=126 ounces of fabric or 7.9 pounds

Silvertip is 9.01 pounds per gallon.

7.9 pounds of resin is 7.9/9.01*128 ounces per gallon or 112 ounces of resin

precoat any tape edges with thickened resin to avoid air pockets at steps

Mix and Roll out about 40% or say 45 ounces of resin onto the substrate with a 9" paint cover and use a good one; the cheap ones fall apart in resin and drive me loopy and make lumpy layouts. Then quickly roll off the glass. I wrote on it always for and aft on the ends and such and number each piece port and star, etc and roll on the opposite of the off to avoid messing it up. Then I use a consilidation roller. I like the 6"x0.5" bubble buster and won't use anything else. And roll the entire fabric down once quickly to take care of any uneven epoxy; the fabric will sponge it up a bit. Then I pour part of the rest out and work it and continue until done. If you are short; mix up another batch. Typically, I mix 12 ounces for large area shortfalls. At 2:1, this is 8 resin and 4 hardener. It seems to be a common amount to need if short. For the above example; it is 10% over. I also squeegee the excess out of the roller.

it will be nearly impossible for one man to do the whole boat in multiple layers, so plan on one. All glass must overlap the prior piece by 2" or more and the second layer of glass must not overlap in the same place.

Epoxy is so strong; you can also do some the following day, but expect to sand rough areas off or the follow on glass will NOT lay down nice and I always pretreat glass steps with thixo for no air in my layups. Especially important for the bottom.

 

Also, hard chines need to be taped first. This makes the follow on layup much simpler. Plan your layout and see if you have cutoffs you can use for hard chines. Do the hardchines first. Wait a day, sand the chine tapes and proceed. I run a trowel of thickened epoxy over the tape steps before I wetout the glass to avoid air pocketing. You don't need much, jist a four inch trowel does it. I actually pull the mud off the tape itself and only hit the steps. If you ise 8-6-4 tapes; you'd ise a 6" trowel.

 

Plan your layout today.

If you want to do all primary bonding; you would have to scaffold the work. For ansingle go, you would basically work port to star and lay the pieces from one side to the other as you go. For you, I would dryfit both layers and mark up and chine tape day one. Then day two, I would sand the chine tapes and fill steps and lay the first layer of glass. Then day 3, I would sand rough areas, thixo the overlap steps each side of the overlaps and finish the 2nd layer.

it is a bit like tiling and not mudwork

you need a place that isn't greasy for your body to reach the work

easy on a narrow bottom boat; bit harder for the seasled

be patient or your work will suck and you'll need to grind and repair

 

You may wish to tape the keels with an extra piece of glass. 17 oz.. they will be subject to some abuse in the forward areas. I would do so on top of the final layup on day 4. Personally, I would put two tapes there; like a 6" wode and a 4" wide.

Experiment with biax. Make tapes from the length; not the width. The stuff is wild to work with across the stotching.

It does like to run the stitching off. It is a pita at wetout. Avoid taping the glass with masking and handle gently. Lotsa stitching thread can get into the roller and drives me batty.

I keep a homer bucket with one quart of acetone in the bottom and throw all my tools in it at the end of the work, or if the job goes past an hour; throw em in for 30 seconds and clean them off or your tools will kick off and get sticky

Nice at the end of a busy day to throw them in the bucket nd be done.

some trowel handles are not resistant to acetone though

 

Good advice. Lots to digest. Thinking now.

 

For your sides; you will need to lightly tape them to dryfit, or perhaps you can measure them out.

i recommend the day you do your glasswork to rent or get a couple of party tables and make a big work surface oitside the tiny shopspace. Plywood and horses works, too, but cover the stuff with poly or your fabric will catch on the ply..think picnic tables with tablecloths

You can use the tables to plan and cut the side glass. You will need help to glass. The sides will be tricky. The issue is that you want to roll it off a tube onto a wetted sirface. But the rollingnoff is hard to do alone. One person needs to be an anchor and hold the start of the roll home or everything will go calamity on you.

biax likes to stretch, so I normally put a length reference on it every 3-5 feet..that way I know if I need to pull it a bit or am pulling too much

 

Good idea.