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

Yeah, and I'll only paddle at night!

: 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.

I went back and reviewed my notes from when I did this. I wetted out the wood with a seal coat of epoxy resin. After that set, I taped off the areas where I wanted to lay in the reinforcement tape. This area left the selvadged edge of the tape "outside" the area I wanted glassed. After the epoxy set, I cut away the taped off area, leaving a decent boarder, though the cut edge needed fairing into the rest of the surface. I didn't want to lay the main layer of glass over the entire hull first because I was afraid when I went to even out the reinforcement layer with it, I might sand through to the wood.

: 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.

Thanks PGJ, for your input here. I'll keep this in mind the next time around.
Bill Cruz