glassing hull interior

I am building the hybird night heron. I should have glassed the hull interior soon after putting in the fillets, while they were still soft. For the life of me I could not get the glass to lay flush on the fillets. I spent a couple of hours pushing down the glass as it slowly lifted off the fillets (seams). The next morning I had too many air pockets along the fillets to deal with. I filled them with epoxy as best I could. I plan to paint the hull and use graphite below the water line. I may paint the hull interior as well. My main concern is water causing damage because of the numerous air pockets I am now stuck with. I think I may be ok since everything is coated with epoxy but I am not sure.  Any solutions would be appreciated  ?  Thanks, Mark 

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RE: glassing hull interior

I completed a Hybrid Night Heron a couple years ago and am now finishing a Wood Duckling. I have a suggestion that might work without having to resort to painting such a beautiful boat. The first suggestion would be to sand down the seams until all of the air pockets are flush and the fillets are smooth. Don't worry that you are sanding thru the fiberglass. After everything is all smooth, then saturate a strip of 3 inch fiberglass tape  with epoxy and lay it down each of the seams. Using 1-2 more coats of epoxy you can fill the weave on the fiberglass tape and join it seamlessly to the rest of the hull. This is exactly what you will be doing when you join the deck to the hull.

  A second, less attractive option is to use the smallest drill bit you have and drill a small hole at each end of every air pocket and use a syringe to fill with epoxy.

RE: glassing hull interior

I emailed CLC and that is what they suggested. I will have to sand the seams smooth and lay 3 " tape. Most of my seams are ok, just several portions have air pockets. I will take my time and do it right. Another lesson learned!

Thanks, Mark

RE: glassing hull interior

In my repair work I have had this action to happen. I used the paint roller of the smallest size to roll across the fibers to work out the air and make the fiber to lay in the place I want. There could be no room to work on the inside of the boat. It  takes a few days to get my back working but the labor is fun. Be sure to cover up doing this cause the glass and fluid will always drip on yourself. By the way on this site there is a article of a new kind of fiber that might work better than the e-glass fiber. I assume weight is not an issue but the light weight fiber is hard to get. Good luck in the build.

RE: glassing hull interior

So what exactly will having a small air bubble or pocket result in, if glassed in the interior side?  I do have a few (size of a pea and smaller) but wasnt' going to sand them out.  I could see issues on the outside if the pocket cracked and let water in, but not so much on the inside.

Should I be sanding & re-filling (or drilling ad filling) on the interior for some smaller air pockets?  

RE: glassing hull interior

I would not worry about the pea size pockets. I built the SW 17 S&G two years ago and had a few air pockets that size. I have used the boat a lot and have never had a water damage issue.  My night heron hybird I messed up on simply by not glassing the interior while my fillets were still curing. As you can imagine, I could not get the glass to lay flush over the fillets once they cured. I was left with a bunch of good sized air pockets. Took me many hours to sand then out . I put a 3" strip of glass over the fillets and all is fine now. I could just kick myself though for all the extra work I created. 

Mark 

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