Re: Building light

Posted by LeeG on Jan 25, 2006

Removing unnecessary wood is a good start,,as well as not using glass or using lighter glass which reduces total epoxy use.

1. leave out the kevlar, it'll soak up too much epoxy and isn't needed for a light person.

2. taper sheerclamps substantially, apply deck with ducttape/straps eliminating the need for a wide sheer clamp needed to accomodate ringnails and 1" deck hardware screws. Cutting the sheerclamps down to a roughly triangular section will save a lot of weight.

2A. exend sheerclamps to the end of the side panels putting wood where an endpour would be.

3. pre-glass inside of bottom panels with 3.25oz tight weave. Overlap bulkhead positions 2" so the bulkheads sit on a doubled section of cloth. Recut bulkheads with 4mm plywood, 6mm is unnecessary. Pre-seal exterior side of hull panels. With 3.25oz tight weave an easy method for glassing is laying the cloth on wet wood and letting the resin soak up through the cloth.

3A. Pre-glass interior of side panels between bulkheads with 3.25oz tightweave extending under bulkheads 2".

4. Use plastic keepers footbraces or cut Yakima footbraces in half,,you don't need 12" of adjustment anyway.

5. make the fillets about 1/2" wide. 5A. use 6oz 1 1/2" tape or cut strips of tightweave.

6. Make under deck hatch reinforcements with 1/2" wide strips and not 1 1/2" wide pieces.

7. pre-glass aft deck between bulkhead and hatch with 3.25oz tightweave.

8. 2" triangular block of cypress cut from sheer clamp instead of endpour.

9. Make hip plates out of 5" wide rectangular 4mm glassed on both sides,doubledglassed over three slots to hold back band webbing. Put another 2"x7" strip of 4oz under the hip plates. All with tightweave.

10. MINIMAL fillets at bulkheads.

The pre-glassing of the interior will substantially reduce the amount of wasted epoxy that can develop attempting to glass interior spaces. This way you only apply epoxy at the joints and for another sealing coat.

You could add a "football" of 3.25oz tight weave e-glass onto the 4oz s-glass bottom when you add the two fill coats needed to fill the 4oz s-glass. Just lay the tight weave onto the first fill coat and let it soak up through instead of squeeging it down from the top. After the second or third fill coat goes on you can sand down into the "football" leaving enough to provide plenty of ding resistance on the bottom but without adding more weight than the two fill coats.

Are you sure there's a fine weave 4oz s-glass? I'd stick with regular weave as it's easy to squeegee.

In Response to: Building light by TB on Jan 25, 2006

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