Hey ya Mick,
It was a interesting part of the project. Taht boat had a lot of proof of concept stuff in it. Made it fun.

Your description of the wood buildup is right on target. I used a small round file to round the grooves, Its Redwood on the bumps and basswood in the grooves.

It was a very very hard glassing. I tried at leat 5 things that didn’t work, and to make matters worse I had the only batch of epoxy I have ever mixed that did not kick, go into this intricacy. Wouldn’t it figure it had to be on this one. I had to make all kinds of custom curved scrapers. Finally got it all out ARG!

What worked was the following. Cut diagonal (45 degree to weave strips and put them on the high strips (dark stuff) That worked well. I tried over lapping them into the grooves tacking them in with epoxy and holding the stufff in with all manner of stuff, but it kept floating up. And had to round file it out again.

I tried various ways and nothing worked. In the end, was able to lay individual fibers down the length and then put diagonal squares in the grooves and hold them in with rounded pieces of scrap soft wood. After it hardened, I used hand gouges and round files sand paper to scraped out the scrap wood right to the weave. In this method the glass weave finally stayed to the bottom of the groove. The edges of these groove swatches of F/G were not even so I had to sand them down to the strips of weave on the high dark stuff I had laid down first. I put a second layer of glass on the groove strips. Epoxy flowing from it filled the groves again. So I again round filed that out and sanded to the grove fabric. With glass and epoxy over all of it I finally varnished the whole thing in one coat and then added a second thickened to the dark strips.

The curves on which the shield rests took some doing too, as did the turned center strip that sticks up from center of the boat. I epoxyied these with a fresh thin batch and toweled the exess off. I letthatsittill it got darn near cured but tacky. Then I laid glass on the tacky wet thin surface and let it sit there starved. I did this inside the shop. I moved it out side into hot summer sunlight to let it harden up, Working it continuously for about 3 hours to keep the floating down using an exacto blade to score sections of glass that were too stiff to lay down. Eventually, it all lay in rightous. I waited for it to go well past cure for Several days. I then used acid brushes to apply layer after layer of thin coat epoxy on it, after a light sanding toweling off the excess and round filing drips. Fianlly varished those sections too.

I defiantly had to do this part seperate. STarting the deck exterior glassing here. When the deck and hull were mated I went back in side and made the ribs. I sit on her regular now, and she has proved to be quite durable.

With all the misfires it took me about to weeks to pull it off. It would go faster now that I know how.

Eventually it all worked out, but it was darn cussed thing start to finish. Hear is a picture of it finished. You can see some of the other ideas I played around with in cockpit building

!RUSS

: hi russ,
: If i understand the picture, you have raised strips abt 1/8 in. with about
: 1/4in. dipped gaps inbetween.
: could you or nick spend some time and explain how you made the topside glass
: lay over the raised strips and into the grooves in between. did you have
: to round the edges, use very thin glass, pressure, laying in tacky
: epoxy??. dit you have to do this section separately from the rest of the
: rear deck?

: how much glass is over these guys and how did you do it?

: -mick