Bev:

Fiberglassing a wooden boat for the first time is kind of daunting. I know because I built my first wooden kayak just this winter. What helped me most, and what I think is absolutely essential, is to do as much reading and research as you can before you actually tackle each phase of the work.

I believe both Nick Schade's book on strip building, and Chris K. (of Chesapeake Light Craft) book on stitch and glue building cover fiberglassing - which is common to both methods of building.

Pete Czerpak's advice is right-on, but I know I wouldn't have felt comfortable after just reading a couple of sentences of instructions. There are lots of important subtlies you want to learn about first, like proper temperature for applying epoxy and letting it cure, smoothing out any sharp edges on your boat before you try and lay the fiberglass on (it doesn't conform well to sharp edges), smoothing out any wrinkles in the fiberglass before applying epoxy (sometimes fiberglass comes folded up and thus has creases in the fabric). These are just a few of the considerations. Don't really mean to make it sound difficult, because it's not really that hard, but you want to be prepared first.

Most people seem to advocate pouring the epoxy on the 'glass and using a squeegie to spread it around, wet out all the glass, and remove any excess epoxy. I personally found that using a decent (though not expensive) brush to wet out the cloth worked well for me. After 12-24 hours I put on the next coat (very light coat), and 12-24 hours later a third light coat, etc., etc., until you could no longer see the weave of the fabric - just the nice okoume wood beneath all that glass and epoxy. If you let the epoxy cure too long between coats the next coat won't adhere well unless you do some light sanding first. It seems to me that you want to avoid sanding between coats if at all possible. That means you need to set aside several days in a row when you'll be available to apply each coat until the weave is filled (at least 3 or 4 coats). It also means that the weather has to cooperate so that it's not too cold or humid during that 4 day period of applying epoxy.

And finally, get a good respirator to keep from breathing those toxic fumes.

Hope that helps get you started and feeling a little more comfortable with the process. It's really not that difficult if you've prepared in advance.

Good luck and happy boat building,

Peter H.