Glassing bottom of LT Peapod

Submitted by bnnash - Wed, 2/10/21 » 10:05 AM

My next step in building the Lighthouse Tender Peapod is glassing the bottom of the hull.  I've never done a glass job of this size and have some concerns about keeping everything in place as I wet out the cloth.  In looking at the construction gallery photos, it looks like once they got the cloth smoothed out and cut to shape, they tacked it down to the flat where strake 5 overlaps strake 4 but they don't mention that in the manual. Should I do that with CA right on top of the filler?  And when should I trim off the excess cloth?  The manual says after curing, but it seems that it would be easier when it gells as was done when glassing the interior.  

Any advice would be much appreciated

Bert


7 replies:

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RE: Glassing bottom of LT Peapod

 » Submitted by Vizcarrondo, Jose - Wed, 2/10/21 » 12:55 PM

   I did it with no tacking or masking. Just laying the fiberglass smoothly over the hull and rtimming it just so it extends past panel 4 into 5. I tried to be careful not to let the epoxy run down and bunch up at that joint on top of the fillet, which is a natual collection point. 

In my case I actually glassed over the fillet, and cut outside of that. I am not sure this is correct but it worked for me this time. I am curious to see how others have done it. 

Cutting the fiberglass on the outside of the joint was not a problem at all after fully curing.

Jose

RE: Glassing bottom of LT Peapod

 » Submitted by upspirate - Wed, 2/10/21 » 2:32 PM

   Not a CLC bild, but what I did on another was to tape off where I wanted the epoxy to stop, lay out the cloth, then littlle tape pieces to hold cloth in position. When green, I neatly trimed along the duct tape, and peeled that and excess cloth back. Nice straight edge to fair then.