Re: Glassing Deck questio

Posted by LeeG on Jun 19, 2004

Homer, the reason why it's unclear is because glassing decks was an add-on procedure to an established building sequence where deck glass wasn't a part of the original design. Orignally the only glassing that occured on these kits was tape on the inside over fillets and hull glass with rub rails taking care of the transition to the deck. There wasn't a manual re-write that explained overlapping layers of glass with the same clarity as applying fillets, tape, or making scarf joints. The cockpit glass in the Chesapeaks is a good example of this.

First thing is get a scraper, that'll make fairing in "green" epoxy/glass much neater and rely less on a sander to fair and disseminate clouds of epoxy/glass. Second is to decide whether you want an overlap onto the hull as mentioned in the directions 1"-2"(I think the Chesapeake kayak manuals suggested a range). The ONLY reason for such an overlap is to provide a kind of rubrail. It won't add any useful strength as the sheerclamp/glassed hull/deck joint is strong enough to drive a car over (not really, but for the stresses that occur there it's already overbuilt). The greatest utility for deck glass is impacts and to a lesser degree deck strength. The 10oz(4+6oz) strip overlap at the top of the sheer panel really doesn't do much for the likely edge impacts that can occur from paddles or rolling the kayak on the ground or roof rack but it is useful for laying the kayak right on it's edge or bumping up to stuff. My $.02 is that 6oz glass is aready tough enough,,and the glass/epoxy can be used elsewhere. If you think about it having 4oz glass 1/2" from 10oz glass and the impacts/wear are about equal why bother,,6oz is good enough.

Ok third is to lay down the blue masking tape where you want it to go,,that 1"-2" range or maybe 3/16"-1/4" right below the round over of the sheer,,I find 3/16" is enough to fair with an initial angled cut with the razor knife then finish carefully with the scraper.

Some folks mentioned putting 2"clear plastic tape over the blue tape.

Ok,,glass away,,wrap over onto the tape,,when the epoxy/glass is "green" or semi-hard come along with the knife and cut the cloth at an ANGLE while pulling up the tape. You can use a scraper to clean up bits of tape and fair the edge.

This method uses a lot of tape and preperation, cleaning but I find the method suggested in the manuals/video where a person goes as a 1"-2" piece of epoxied glass with a ROS or disc sander REQUIRES some skill with the sander so as to not cut into 4oz glass on the sheer or dig further into the 6oz glass that was already sanded.

After the fairing in occures go back and lay down two extra fill coats along the sheer beyond the two minimum needed to fill 4oz deck glass. The extra fill coats on the sheer will help reduce the tendency to sand into the glass/wood.

In Response to: Glassing Deck question... by Homer on Jun 19, 2004

Replies:

• Re: Glassing Deck questio by Jay E. Morris on Jun 19, 2004
  • Re: Glassing Deck questio by Jay E. Morris on Jun 19, 2004
    • Re: confusion by LeeG on Jun 20, 2004