: . . . it would be a simple
: matter to 'glass a skin boat much as one would a wooden boat. Epoxy,
: vinylester and polyester resins should all work, since you're essentially
: just doing a 'glass layup over a mold. You could even add a layer of
: Kevlar for color and toughness.

Kelar for color? where is Henry Ford? "Yesssir, you can have that boat in any color you want -- as long as you want this shade of yellow."

The only technical problem I can see with using polyester resin with this is that you are NOT using a mold. The fabric is stretched over a frame and is thus exposed to air on both sides. Polyester resin stays tacky in the presence of air, so you would need to seal the inside of the boat ( after applying the resin) with a sprayed in coat of something like a mold release, perhaps polyvinyl alcohol. This should adhere to the resin saturated fabric, blocking air from the curing resin on that side of the fabric. The outside of the boat would then be ready to receive additional layers of glass, polyester, kevlar or carbon cloth and/or more resin without needing to be sanded.

After the resin is hard you can wash out any of the mold release left on the inside by using a garden hose.

There is a version of polyester resin which contains dissolved waxes and some styrene. as this resin sets up the waxes and styrenes migrate to the outside where they form a skin which seals the polyester resin, and thus it will harden. If you use this then you have to either get on all the additional layers of resin in a short period of time, or you have to sand off the wax and styrene before adding another coat of resin. The properties of this material might be a goad to encourage rapid working. Unless you can work really fast, I think this would be more difficult to use, as sanding the flexible skin would be more challenging.

I'm not sure how the ethylester resin reacts to air, but epoxy resin does not have this concern at all.

PGJ