: This sounds like a good approach to me. A couple questions for you though.

: Did you fill the gaps with epoxy putty immediately after applying the fill
: coat or did you let the fill coat cure first? Seems like I read somewhere
: that if you apply epoxy putty over a partially cured fill coat you end up
: with a gooey mess - however, I don't see how this would be much different
: than applying the cloth and first resin layer over a partially cured
: (12-24 hrs)fill coat.

I actually did it both ways with no problems. But I prefere to do it right after seal coating...no waiting...no idle time.

When doing the seal coat, I poured on the epoxy, spread with a plastic spreader to cover all the wood, a few miniutes later I moved the epoxy around to soak into any areas that looked dry and a few minutes later I squeegied off the excess. I didn't let the epoxy totally soak in until no more would go. I figured it is still sealing...getting into the cracks and it would help prevent epoxy starvation when wetting out the cloth. I then used small amounts of epoxy that was squeegied off and mixed with sawdust of differing colors and some micro balloons to get a good color match and proceeded to use the plastic spreader to work it into any small gaps I could still find. No gooey messes and no blemishes. It was all good.

: Did the fill coat and putty areas need sanded before continuing with the
: fiberglassing? If so, it seems I would have to let it fully cure instead
: of following up with the cloth and resin step in the normal time sequence.

I can't remember which combination of interior/exterior and hull and deck, but on one of them I did let it cure and felt it was best to do a light sanding as it was a little grainy feeling on the surface in a few areas.

When I did the hull interior, I had precut the cloth before seal coating, rolled it up, spread epoxy in the hull, filled the gaps with epoxy/sawdust filler, and rolled out the fiberglass before the epoxy was cured. Since I sqeegied the seal coat to "dry" there was no problems with the glass sticking and pulling as I placed it back on. There probably is no real good reason that I did it this way on the interior, I was just experimenting with different techniques to ensure no blemishes with the gap filler material.

: I've started to fair the hull on my 'Cape Ann' and the gaps aren't nearly as
: apparent as I thought they would be so it isn't going to be many areas
: that need filled as I first thought.

On problem with the gaps (even if you can't see them)is an increase of bubbles forming as the epoxy cures (most bubbles come from outgassing of the wood. The epoxy will pool in the little gaps and creats a little more heat during cure, thus more bubbles). If these are filled first, even with epoxy from a seal coat, you don't have to keep coming back every 20 minutes to pop those pesky little bubbles.

Tom