Starboard Fiberglassing Finished

It has been a while since I've worked on the boat. However, I'm back at it, and just finished fiberglassing the starboard side a few days ago. Here are a few photos...

6oz fiberglass cloth taped into place. I hadn't noticed the cloth had shifted before I cut it at the bow.

I left enough extraneous area to make it easy to cut  the cloth after the side was soaked with epoxy.

I've found that it's much easier to remove the tape by pulling it AWAY from the fiberglass cloth's frayed edge than toward it. MUCH less hassle.

Cloth wetted out with epoxy resin & trimmed along the bottom.

Because I hadn't noticed that the cloth shifted earlier, I cut away too much around the bow, and did not have enough cloth to lap over onto the port side.

I mis-judged and mixed WAY too much epoxy, so I went ahead and fiberglassed part of the port side using the scrap cloth cut from the bow area.

I have also cut and assembled the transom knee for the Zip. I don't have photos at the moment, so more on that later....

More fiberglassing photos

The next section of fiberglass cloth "draped and taped" before applying the epoxy.

After the epoxy is applied, the fiberglas cloth is all but invisible.

I have tried to be as meticulous as possible with the transom. However, I will have to sand those areas where the fiberglass cloth overlaps it.

New Year. New Promise. New hope I'll get this thing in the water this year.

Progress is coming along steadily, if slowly on the Utility. The fiberglassing work continues. It's fortunately not difficult. It just takes time... working in sections, feathering edges, sanding, etc.

You know.... "boat building."

At this point, I've got all of the bottom fiberglassed on the Utility, and I've begun encapsulating frame # 5-1/2 on the Zip.

Here are a couple of progress photos. Happy New Year to you!

Zip frame #5-1/2, "glued and screwed," and awaiting encapsulation with marine epoxy.

Here are the Zip (L)  and the Utility (R), side-by-side. As you can see, they're at very different stages of completion.

Zip frame #5-1/2, partially encapsulated.

Hull bottom is fully fiberglassed, but needs to be sanded.

Starboard bottom, forward at the chine transition joint.

Sanding / Feathering the fiberglass cloth at port aft.

Overlapping the fiberglass cloth at the bow.

The Utility: Fiberglassing continues.

I left off at the last post discussing "feathering" the edge of the fiberglass-covered area. This is simply sanding the edge down in order to have a smooth overlapped seam when you add the next, neighboring section of fiberglass cloth.

With 70% of the boat's bottom covered, I feathered the forward edge of the fiberglassed area. I also rounded over the sharp edge on the bow. With this done, I was ready to add the next section of fiberglass cloth: covering the forward bottom on the port side of the hull.

It went very smoothly. Again, I highly recommend Ken Hankinson's book How To Fiberglass Boats, as it (and the accompanying DVD) make the process very easy to understand. 

Working alone, it's difficult to photograph the fiberglassing process because I'm mostly preoccupied with handling the epoxy (which I don't want to get all over my camera with messy, gloved hands). However, this time I've tried to better show what some of the stages look like:

Photo from the previous post, showing the partially-feathered edge at the chine transition joint.

The same area after the new section of fiberglass cloth was added. On the left, you can see the edge of the new overlapping section. This will need to be sanded as well, to make the overlapping seam smooth.

Feathering the edge that has overlapped the bow.

Feathering the edge that has overlapped the bow.

Fiberglassed transom, after a 2nd coat of epoxy (squeegied meticulously) to fill the weave of the 6oz fiberglass cloth.

Fiberglassing begins.

Finally, the time came to start fiberglassing the hull of the Utility. I'd ordered some 6oz fiberglass cloth in both 50-inch and 38-inch widths from Jamestown Distributors. After reviewing the book and DVD on How to Fiberglass Boats from Glen-L, (which I consider a must-have resource on the subject), I was ready to begin.

Edges of the hull rounded-over in preparation for fiberglassing.

The first step was to round over the edges of the hull so that the fiberglass cloth will conform fully to the edges. According to the book and DVD, fiberglass cloth cannot conform to a sharp angle. So, rounding the edges allows the fiberglass cloth to remain in contact with the wood on the edges, eliminating air pockets. Air pockets would be potential trouble spots for trapping water, resulting in rot, etc. What I quickly learned in practice is that it does not require much "rounding over" to be effective... at least not with 6oz cloth.

Since the Utility's transom is only 44 inches wide, I decided to apply the full 3 yards of 50" cloth from the transom to 70% of the hull bottom as one continuous piece. Wetting the fiberglass cloth with epoxy was actually pretty easy, by simply following what I'd learned in the Glen-L book and DVD. The only "surprise" was that it took more epoxy to do the job than I'd expected. Using the thin foam rollers made the process quite simple.

Fiberglass cloth applied to the transom.

Just as I did when encapsulating the hull, I meticulously squeegied excess epoxy off of the transom. This will mean I'll have to apply more layers of epoxy to completely cover the texture of the fiberglass cloth on the transom. However, it should also result in an attractive finish.

The "rounded-over" edges after applying more epoxy and the fiberglass cloth.

Feathering the edges

After the epoxy had fully cured, the next step was to begin feathering the edges of the fiberglass cloth. This is basically just sanding down the edge so that, when the next section of cloth is added, they will overlap on the "feathered" seam. Then, after sanding the seam once again after the second layer of cloth is applied, the seam will be flush with the rest of the surface.

Here you can see the feathered edge, where the forward edge of the fiberglass cloth has been sanded. This shows in the photo as the lighter band across the bottom of the hull.

A more detailed view of the feathered (sanded) edge at the transition joint on the chine. As you see, the edge of the fiberglass on the hull side has not been sanded yet.

The next step is to round over the sharp edge of the bow, and lightly sand the epoxy surface on the forward bottom. Then I'll be able to fiberglass those areas.

Life goes on.

The end of summer brought with it a devastating personal loss. My boatbuilding work suffered in the aftermath. So did a whole lot of other things. But, as they say, life goes on. I'm finally back to working on the boats, so here is a little update:

The Utility
After sanding, filling in holes and low spots, more sanding, more filling, and yet more sanding... the hull was finally ready for encapsulation. Taking advice from more experienced builders, I applied the epoxy (System Three Silvertip) with the special thin foam rollers from Glen-L. This made application much faster and easier than trying to do it with a chip brush. And if you're thinking about using the "regular" paint rollers for this... DON'T. I made that mistake. I regretted it. So will you, in all likelihood.

Glen-L Utility hull, encapsulated with 1 layer of System Three Silvertip epoxy.

On the transom, after rolling on the epoxy, I squeegied it meticulously to remove all excess epoxy. This gives the transom a very attractive "stained" look, accenting the grain that I want to show.

I was very happy with how the transom turned out.

The hull is now ready to be fiberglassed.

The ZIP
Yes, I am enjoying building the Utility. I even got to drive one recently, and it's a neat little boat. However, I want that Zip in the water. There's a long, long way to go before that can happen. So, I built frame 5-1/2 over the weekend. I built it out of 4/4 African Mahogany, lapped with 1/4" Douglas Fir gussets and 3/4" Douglas Fir floor member. It is ready to be disassembled and epoxied. Hopefully, I can get that done sometime this week. 

Glen-L Zip frame # 5-1/2

Sanding.

When we last left off at the previous blog post, it was time for a lot of sanding on the Utility's hull. That is exactly what I’ve been doing for the last couple of weeks. I’ve done enough sanding, in fact, that I’ve come to a new realization: 

Up to this point in my life, I did not fully grasp the true definition of the word “dust.”

Sanding this boat hull in preparation for fiberglassing it has generated a colossal amount of fine red dust that has covered absolutely everything in my garage. My poor shop vac is trying valiantly to keep up.

In any case, there is still more sanding to be done.

Since it’s now August, I thought I’d post a couple of updated progress photos. All the sanding has revealed a spot on the forward port side where the bottom of a frame did not get adequately faired, resulting in a little “bump” in the plywood. I obviously didn't see this before... perhaps due to the amount of extraneous plywood that was overhanging the side. It’s really best to avoid this type of thing, but there’s not much I can do about it now.

Current state of the hull. Soon it will be time for a little fairing compound.

Frame #2, which is about an inch aft of this bump, apparently had a high spot that I did not catch, resulting in this bump in the planking. Fortunately, it does not feel to the hand as bad as it looks to the eye. I'll fill in these spaces with fairing compound. After fiberglass and paint, I don't believe it will be very noticeable.

This is the shimmed area at the port aft, where I had accidentally gouged the side planking. I think it will look fine once the hull is painted.