Re: Bulkheads In or Out?

Posted by Laszlo on Mar 26, 2005

Matt,

The continuous strips would be stronger, but are not worth the effort since the individual strips are strong enough.

If you did remove the bulkheads, you'd have to come up with something else that didn't interfere with the tape and seams to hold the hull's shape while you taped it.

Stopping short of the bulkhead is fine. If you did run it up the bulkhead you'd have some trouble with the tape laying flat since you have 3 different surfaces coming together at one point. You'd end up having to either fold the tape or cut darts, either of which cancels the strength advantage of having long continuous fibers. And you'll be fighting a nasty unravelling problem.

Speaking of unravelling, if you've never done this before, when wet glass starts unravelling, it forms a nasty, sticky snot-like mess that sticks to everything and seems to be impossible to clean up. Avoid the problem by putting masking tape across your glass tape and cutting down the center of the tape. This will trap the threads so that they can't unravel. When the epoxy has hardened to the "green" stage (sticky taffy), use a razor blade to cut the taped protion of the glass away and push the edge down flat. You can aslo seal it with a few drops of epoxy then if you waited a bit too long and it doesn't want to stick.

Good luck,

Laszlo

In Response to: Bulkheads In or Out? by Matt Croce on Mar 25, 2005

Replies:

• Re: Snotlike Mess by Mac on Mar 26, 2005
• Re: Bulkheads In or Out? by Matt Croce on Mar 26, 2005
  • Re: Bulkheads In or Out? by Scot on Mar 26, 2005
    • Peel-ply vs plastic sheet by Laszlo on Mar 28, 2005
      • Re: Peel-ply vs plastic s by CLC on Mar 28, 2005
    • Re: Bulkheads In or Out? by FrankP on Mar 29, 2005
  • Avoiding the mess by Howard on Mar 26, 2005
  • Re: Bulkheads In or Out? by Laszlo on Mar 28, 2005