Re: fiberglass tape

Posted by LeeG on Nov 30, 2004

yep, it's common. Here's what I'd do if I had to use tape. Lay down a coat of epoxy and let it get tacky,,then lay the tape on that and use a minimal wet out coat. Basically use a partially cured coat like contact cement. Or you can come back every hour and press the ripples out but that's not a good idea if the fillets were soft. The problem with using 3"9oz tape is that it started from a time when the fillets were shown in the manuals to be as wide as the tape. Basically the whole piece of tape was laying in goop and the goop filled the gaps. After a few years folks started wondering if that much goop was necessary and made the fillets smaller,,something about having to reorder more epoxy and having 55lb kayaks might have something to do with that. So with these 1/2"-3/4" wide fillets the ripples in the tape started becoming VERY noticable as it pulled away from the relatively dry wood. Along with the narrower fillets the practice of putting cloth OVER the edge of the tape made for lovely bubbles if one was to actually squeegee out excess epoxy and not float the whole mess in epoxy. So folks scrape and sand before laying cockpit cloth,,or after laying cockpit cloth. Which looks funny because the glass is pretty much sanded off the edge of the tape and not connected. My $.02 is to reduce the amount of glass/epoxy put down that has to be scraped/sanded up again. It would be interesting if someone were to make a Chesapeake without 3"9oz tape and just used 6oz cloth 1" above the fillet.

In Response to: fiberglass tape by Jim Sinacola on Nov 30, 2004

Replies:

  • ps. by LeeG on Nov 30, 2004
    • Re: ps. by Doug Judd on Nov 30, 2004
      • Re: ps. by Jay E Morris on Nov 30, 2004