: Well, the Chessy LT17 in the apartment livingroom experiment is underway. I
: already seriously goofed up the sheer clamps. I glued one sheer clamp to
: the wrong side of a hull panel. I pulled the sheer clamp up and it took 2
: of 3 laminations with it along the length of the panel. After planing the
: now excess mahogany off the intact sheer clamp I have undertaken
: rebuilding that one inch strip along the hull panel with 3 coats of wood
: flour thickend epoxy moving from a thicker to progessively thinner
: mixture. I was planning on painting anyway, but...damn now I have to. MY
: question: with the sheer clamp now placed on the proper side of the
: botched panel and the divots replaced with the epoxy mixture can I still
: build a strong boat? I am assuming that the fiberglass will still do most
: of the work and as long as I sand the panel prior to epoxy fill coating
: the fiberglass the boat will still be strong. Or am I screwed and do I
: need a new panel? Sorry it was so long. -Mike

If you have already gone to the trouble to fill in the gap then it wold seem you have already decided to keep working with this panel. I don't know if you have a kit or if you are building from plans, but I think that if you had access to some more plywood it would be cheaper to make a new panel than to try and fill in the missing wood plies that ripped off when the sheer clamp was removed. It might be faster, too.

If I had opted to go with the existing wood, I think I would have stitched together what I had, in its damaged condition, and let the thickened epoxy and the seam tape do some of the filling-in of the gap. A few extra 1-inch-wide strips of glass cloth laid into the gap would fill it rather smoothly and quickly. It would not be as transparent as other areas on the boat, but you would still be able to see some wood grain through it, so the damage might not look quite so damaging.

I like the idea of using a piece of wood trim for a rub rail.

With some tools and time you might have planed down a piece of plywood to nearly the thickness of a veneer, and placed that inot the damaged area, effectively rebuilding the wood to its former level.

Otherwise, consider just painting the edges and seams, leaving the rest of the boat's woodwork showing. Three narrow stripes of different colored paint will conceal the area, but not be so dominant that it looks ugly. A patriotic look can be implied by a 1 inch wide base layer of white paint with pinstripes of red and blue applied over it.

Good luck with the rest of the construction.

PGJ