Saving weight and gaining traction - good stuff. I’d recommend adding a fill layer in most places though. Strength of glass epoxy system relies on bedding continuous filaments of glass to the wood. Extra epoxy layers add very little strength but a great deal of abrasion resistance. The texture will be a big catchall for grit that can rapidly grind through one layer of epoxy and cut the glass, especially at your heels and under your seat. You also wouldn't be able to sand a single coat without cutting glass.

Working for a sensible compromise, I buried  the weave at high wear spots in the cockpit under foot and seat and around the calves and knees. Also burred the weave directly under the hatches. Texture with one fill layer is pleasing. Under side of the deck didn’t get any fill and it’s looking fine.
But if you’re racing, skimp everywhere!
ev

   Excellent, thanks Eric. I have some time- even enough to do little testing, but I wasn't confident that any test pieces would give me a clear idea of the real-world overall effect. And after paint it's definitely too late to turn back. Your approach sounds reasonable- thanks for sharing.

Best,

Patrick

   It will look better and last longer with the "weave" filled with epoxy.

I have to agree with Grumpy's preceeding post.  I painted the inside of my boat with Interlux Brightsides one-part polyurethane and mixed in Interlux's anti-skid compound for the seats and cockpit sole.  The surface gives good traction and doesn't abrade my clothing or skin.

I would be concerned about the difficulty of ensuring that all the glass fibers are encapsulated without filling the weave and I would suspect that it might be difficult to get an even, attractive, finish if only partially filling the weave.

My wife would tell you that I'm not always right.

Cheers,

Dick

   I had the same idea once upon a time, save weight, gain traction. Well I did it on 2 of my wood SUP boards and ended up re glassing both of them. There will be pin holes somewhere and when the temperature changes water will be sucked through the weave of the cloth, I guarrenty it will happen!  Want to save weight use lighter weight glass cloth. Want traction use a none slip surface coating. There is a reason to make sure the cloth is fully encapsulated. Learn from my mistakes or you can just go ahead and then I get to say I told you so!

My WD12 has been unfilled on the inside since I built it in 2008, still doing fine. My wife's CH17 has had an unfilled inner surface since 2005, still no problems (though she doesn't like the feel and has a foam pad for her heels).

Laszlo

i'm with Laszlo on this.  i have several boats in the many years of service category where i did not 'fill the weave' on the interior.

now what exactly does 'not fill the weave' mean?

it sure does not mean that you have pin holes that lets water through (not a good idea to leave standing water no matter the situation).  it does not necessarrily mean one layer wet out and done.

fundamentally, for me, it means you are not going to sand or lay down so much epoxy that you completely bury the weave.   for me this is usually a wet out pass using a squeegee...and 'plastic' cure followed by a second pass with the squeegee to deal with any 'pin holes' and then i am done.  fwiw....always applied in a hot and cooling situation to 'in-gas' vs 'out gas'.

where i have a high wear area (like where my feet are) i put some masking tape down to create a rectangular area around where the balls of my feet would be...and apply another coat of epoxy thickened slightly with silica for wear resistance just in that area (about 12 inches long by 10 inches wide).

   Thanks to all for the helpful tips. As it turns out, this was my first time out with 6 ounce glass, and an inside, concave surface no less. That being the case, not filling the weave turned out to not be an issue. Until I rig up some sort of vacuum layup set up like Nick Schade, looks like I'll be filling the weave by default! One or two light fill coats should fill the weave nicely. Obviously, a tighter layup would have been better, but being this is a wood duckling limited use time is pretty much built into the design. By the time it takes on too much damage I expect the kids will want a bigger kayak anyway. Onward! 

Thanks,

Patrick