Fiberglassing

Isalos Fine Art/Boat Shop

Putting the fiberglass on. This is the part I have worried about the most. I've helped my Dad fiberglass one of the boats he built and it was exhausting and frustrating work. But his boat was built outside in the summer so it was hotter so the epoxy cured faster, there were leaves and bugs, and it was a bigger boat. I read all I could first, but words aren't the same as actually seeing how much epoxy to use and what the fiberglass should look and feel like. After the first coat of epoxy that embeds the fiberglass, you add two fill coats that fill the weave of the fiberglass. The fill coats have to go on within 72 hours for epoxy to bond, and the boat has to stay clean.

My favorite quote about this whole epoxy process is from Kayaks You Can Build , "And, if you can, keep fondling to a minimum between the critical layers." This is really funny because it's almost impossible to be in a room with a boat that's being built out of wood and not touch it. Everyone that sees the boat has to touch it. I have my hands on it constantly.

Here I am smoothing the fiberglass cloth out, not fondling the boat - it feels like smooth dry snake skin, nice.

To roll....
or brush? Once again, I had different recommendations and so I tried them both. The rolling was faster but left extra epoxy on the seams, the brush slower and neater but not always as even. Or so it seemed at the time, looking at it this morning the rolled areas don't look all that even.


The stern is tricky, you have to cut the fiberglass and wrap it around the edge. The first side was beautiful, the second a bit messier, with little strings fraying off.



Michael helped me by mixing epoxy so I had a never ending supply ready. Even so, I felt like this picture he put together.

So the dreaded fiberglassing went OK. I took a look at it this morning. Not too bad, there are some shiny spots with a bit too much epoxy, I should have squeegeed a bit more in some areas but I was also worried about starving the fiberglass too. And it was starting to set up on me. Now I know, for the next boat....

It might seem like I spend all my time working on the kayak, and admittedly it has taken over my studio as well as my time, but I am working on a few other things as well. Here is an ad I put together that will be in the June/July issue of Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors magazine.


Links:
Rebecca's website
Isalos Fine Art
Pygmy Boats
Kayaks You Can Build
Maine Boats, Homes, & Harbors magazine.