Hey Paul, great idea for joining strips.

I have been using that principle to reinforce the 3mm lauan that I have been using as a skin on my kayaks for years. Instead of fiberglass cloth I have been using that stuff sold in the garden center to keep the weeds from growing. It is a random weave polyester cloth. What I like about it is that it is inexpensive, light weight, easy to work with (wets out well) and that it has some "give" to it when bending the panels. Being woven with a monofilament, the "garden cloth" requires very little epoxy to adhere to the wood - about twice what it would take to coat the bare wood panel. On the negative side - it does not go "clear" so it is not suitable for a surface that is to be bright finished.

I have just gotten a hold of a large quantity of VERY tight weave 3 oz fiberglass cloth (it makes great tape - anyone got any ideas for a jig to cut long straight strips?) and I am going to try a test run to see how the panels react to being fiberglassed flat then bent - don't know if the lauan will stand the stress.

A consideration about working with pre-fiberglassed panels is that the glass is very hard on cutting edges. For S&G it is not too bad because the panel is precut to shape and the edges can be dressed by sanding leaving only the drilling to do. Any cutting or drilling would be best done with carbide tools.

Carbide drill bits are readily available in small sizes at a reasonable price. A visit to your local Printed Circuit Board manufacturer and a request for the "dull" bits that are past re-pointing will probably net you a handful.

I hope to be able to make a pair of panels at one time keeping the outside faces together against a plastic separator that the surface becomes smooth and minimize the sanding. For making the flat panels I was going to apply the resin and garden cloth to the panel and flip it over on to a sheet of heavy plastic, resin and glass the next side (which would be an outside face), add another layer of plastic, then glass the second panel (keeping the outside faces toward each other) finishing (the second back side) with resin and garden cloth followed with more plastic - a panel to distribute the weight and add a bunch of weights (my flock of "led ducks") to hold the whole works flat for curing.

If anybody has any suggestions as to what to use a separator/ release agent between the panels let me know.

It will be a couple of days before I can do my initial test. I will post the results.

If this works OK I will be trying this construction on a Chesapeake 17 LT that I will be starting as soon as I am done with the kayak in process.

Hope this is of interest.

Hank