: Glassing the Hull: When laying the tape on a keel line, especially at the
: stems, How do you get the tape to be invisible when the next layer of
: glass is applied?

: My own experience is that the tape either didn't wet out fully and the tape
: line is quite visible in bright light.

This is easily resolved. Keep your boat upright and the keel line need never be seen in bright daylight.

: I attribute this to two factors; a)
: that the tape didn't fully wet out, and b) when I sanded the tape edges
: for a smoother lay up of the next sheet of glass, the sanded fibers were
: still left on the surface.

Seriously, though, I'd suggest that you not use tape. Rather, use strips of glass cloth which you cut yourself. You can also put these pieces on as the second layer, rather than the first.

Tape has a continuous, woven, selvedge edge. While it is neat in the sense that it keeps the tape a consistent width, the thickness of this area, and the denseness of the weaving of this area cause all the problems you describe.

If you lay your main layer of cloth first you will have plenty of piees of scraps left after trimming off the overhang. There is no reason to make that keel stripe a perfectly even 3 inches, or 4 inches. Irregular shapes work fine and fool the eye -- a bit of camoflauge -- or, if you insist on a nice, even-width strip, when you apply the cut strip, or a piece of tape, on top of your original layer of glass you'll find fairing it in is easier, and trapped bubbles should be fewer. The reason for this is that you are putting several coats of resin on the stack, and after each coat you are working on making that edge disappear. Eventually you get enough layers of resin on there to make a smooth transition.

When you put down the center strip first, you would never do that much work on fairing in the glass center strip alone, so you would probably have a very tiny ledge Your second layer of glass would drape over this, and you would probably have either some trapped air bubbles in that area, or a thicker layer of resin. Either the bubbles, or the color or refraction of the thicker layer of resin creates a weak outline of the strip.

PGJ