Hi,

Because several people (particularly Rob, Nick, Paul and George, Spidey, Don) took the time to read and add to this thread I wanted to report how the glassing went. After the seal coat, my hull was slightly uneven (the lion share of this was in the grain height) I elected to hand sand it smooth with 100 grit. After laying out the fiberglass (no problem, in fact it conformed to the hull like a second skin with out much efflort on my part) I mixed 4.5 ozs of clear coat and rolled it on. One thing that I should have realized eariler but didn't : the small roller frame had gotten some epoxy inbetween the center wire support and the "roller" part itself. This caused the roller to be very stiff. I worked it (late at night and it was the only one I had) and cut at it and put a small amount of lube and it loosened up, but it was still not really "free" rolling. In the event I think this helped me put a very thin layer of epoxy on the hull. The "stiffness" of the roller caused me to apply more pressure and this cut way, way down on the production of bubbles. In fact I had almost no bubbles at all. The extra smoothing I gave the seal coat allowed a remarkably tight laying of the glass. That combined with the thin layer of epoxy put on by my stiff roller made the job go very eaisily. No mess, no runs, and when I went over the boat with the squeegee I took off no more than a teaspoon of resin. I suppose everyone (if he is lucky) develops his own technique and I am very happy with the "full" seal coat I applied as it allowed me to sand the hull virtually smooth with out "scuffing" the finish by sanding all the way back to bare wood. I don't see any effect that could be called "blotchy" or anything else, but I suppose it would be too early to tell about that anyway. As a first timer with no experience, I am just glad I was eventually able to turn out such a good and tight "glass job" the first time ... by any method at all. I am real grateful to you Paul for relieving me of the worry about my sanding leaving marks that would be seen after the glass was applied. Not having this to worry about while I was sanding and glassing really helped me a lot ! And this result is better than I could have hoped for. I feel that I can easily maintain the thin coat in subsequent coats because I have such a wonderfully smooth surface now. I think the sanding I did on the seal coat may well save me as much as 3 or 4 pounds, but maybe I am just getting carried away, I am not sure how much less it will weigh, but I am sure it will not be a heavy hull. I read and got advise here, I was prepared and the hull was properly prepared so in the event it went very well and was an enjoyable 3 hours of effort. The timely advise I was given here was of the greatest benifit to my confidence and thinking. Thanks for all the help ! One thing I find noteworthy, I thought 3 quarts (2 resin 1 hardner) of clear coat resin would wet out all the glass on my kayak, but that is not going to be the case. I have not wasted any resin at all to speak of (I did use clear coat for my 2- 24" X 18" bulkhead "practice panels" too but that is not much). I did put the quarts in to the gallon bottles so I could use the pumps, so I can only estimate how much remains, but it looks like a little more than 1 quart in total is remaining. That means I have used 1/2 gallon of resin to : seal the hull; glass the hull (one layer only so far) and to seal and glass the bulkheads both sides. I did sand off a lot (took over 20 pcs of sandparer) but The seal coat was not real thick and I have not had lost batches or extra resin that I have thrown away. Can anyone give me an Idea of what a "tight" lay up should use in terms of resin ??