I haven't bought cloth "from scratch" before. Here's what I'm thinking. If I'm off base, please take me to school! This is for the Sea Kayaker Mag Greenland s&g.

The materials list calls for 6 yards of 32" for the hull, and 6 yards of 24" for the deck. But the plans also assume only glassing the outsides, with taped inside seams and a patch of glass on the floor of the cockpit.

Since I am building this boat from luan, I've learned that I ought to glass it inside and out. So I doubled the called for 12 yards to 24 yards. I figured I'd just get one width wide enough to do the deck or hull, and move the yardage up to 30 to get the price break and stock away a few yards of spare cloth for messing around with on experiments.

I guess I could buy a 60" roll and cut it in half off center a few inches, which would save about $30 or so vs. buying twice as much 38", but how in the world can you cut a roll of cloth in half clean? Would I have to unroll it, cutting as I went and take it up on two other spools? I think I would fray the edges all up and cut it crooked.

If one of you all were building this boat would you order differently? How?

: You are gonna have a lot of extra cloth.

: Why are you shopping for 38 inch fabric? Is that the only stuff available
: near you? I'd look for 45 inch or 54 inch fabric and order 3 times the
: length of the boat, plus 1 yard. For an 18 foot boat that would be 19
: yards.

: When you cut the fabric you'll be using football shaped pieces to cover the
: deck and the hull. When you cut those from the rectangular fabric you get
: lots of very large remnants. Use these to glass the inside of the deck and
: the inside of the hull. With careful cutting you should even have enough
: excess to cut bias strips for attaching the deck to the hull. Do a mock up
: with pages of newspaper taped together to form a long sheet as wide as the
: fabric you are considering purchasing. Drape this paper over your hull or
: deck and see what excess you have. You might even want to cut the paper to
: make a pattern which you can lay on your glass cloth so you cut it to
: size. Even after allowing for a few inches of overang on all sides, your
: "scrap" fabric is going to be extensive, and should be used on
: areas which are not easily seen, such as the underside of the deck or fore
: or aft of the cockpit.

: Paper mockups are cheap and will save you a considerable amount of money on
: your glass cloth purchases.

: PGJ