memories

Posted by Howard on Mar 12, 2005

yeah, the multichines had some interesting challenges....

i distinctly remember glassing the inside of the hull...it was a long painful step...but i was pretty happy with the results.

i did a lot of question asking prior to this step and leveraged some other folks experience...so here is how i think you can get a good result:

1) simply plan on having a whole day to do this or break it up and do one section of the hull at a time. you need enough time to do the step but you also need to be around to monitor it after its done....at least another four to six hours of checking in on it after the initial job is done.

2)this is a step where it may make sense to work at the lower temperature range of the epoxy to give you plenty of time to work. you need to give yourself plenty of time without the epoxy going off...work in small batches.

3) this step requires a lot of monitoring to ensure no bubbles, that the glass is staying down, and that the epoxy is not pooling. so after you are "done" you need to be able to come back evey hour and check to make sure that everything is still going right.

4) the most difficult part of this step is handling the glass as you come up to the sheer clamps and along the bulkhead..two things to think about here...spring clamps are very useful to hold the glass up along the shear. second, when the cloth is just a bit green...you can cut it with a very sharp box cutter and push it down along the panels. make sure to cut it just a bit short of the shear clamp so it will lay down flat. but this is why you need to be able to come back and continuously monitor your curing epoxy....so making sure you have the time is critical.

5) plastic squeegees are the best way to work with the epoxy in these areas. i used two of them...using one to anchor the cloth on a seam and the other to wet out the adjacent panel. one of the issues that was mentioned is that it is very easy on this boat to move the glass out of position as you move from one panel to the other. using two squeegees at a time (one to anchor and the other one to "brush" the epoxy helps you prevent that. the other advantage of the squeegee is it is an exellent tool for getting the excess epoxy off the glass and ensuring that you are not creating pools of epoxy.

anyway...you can do....give yourself lots of time and be patient.

hs

In Response to: Re: Joining a w river 18 by Petewp on Mar 12, 2005

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