I am building a Pygmy Coho and have fiberglassed the outside of the hull and completed one fill coat. When I did these coats, however, I had a lot of bubbles come up and although popped them all with a foam brush, the outlines of the bubbles remained. I think perhaps these are called craters. These will likely fill in with my final coat of epoxy, but my first question is: should I use a Surform to knock down the edges of the "craters" before I do the final coat? I can't sand, of course, because there isn't enough epoxy on top of the fiberglass to do so without cutting into the cloth.

I am going to wait to do the last fill coat until this evening when the temperature begins dropping in hopes this will prevent more bubbling in the last coat.

Also, I put on a "sacrificial layer" of fiberglass tape along the keel with my first fill coat. It looks fine, but I had some trouble getting it to lay flat over the keel and had to paint on more epoxy than I think I maybe should have. It began dripping down the sides a bit and I kept it fairly clean, but there are a couple of drips that I missed. My second question is: should I worry about these drips now, or just do the final fill coat and hope it evens out? Or will it even out or is there going to be unevenness that will have to be sanded out before varnishing? Basically,when is the best time to address this problem?

Finally, where the keel begins to curve up, there is air beneath the fiberglass tape that I should probably fill with epoxy. Should I drill a hole through it and do that now, or should I simply cut the tape back to a spot before the keel begins to curve up. I guess I don't need a "sacrificial layer" where the boat probably won't be hitting the beach anyway.

Thanks for reading. Sorry such a long message. Pygmy not open today :)