: Thanks for responding. Mostly, I wanted to make sure I understood
: correctly that you managed to successfully use
: dacron/epoxy/fiberglass. Somewhere or other I had read in a bood
: ubout ultralight canoes and kayaks that dacron is ok as a
: "peel ply" with epoxy but not a permanent combination.
: The description involved having to use plyers to remove the
: dacron, which made it sound to me as if they did indeed bond. In
: any event, did you successfully use dacron/epoxy/fiberglass? If
: so, do you recall the weight of the dacron and fiberglass you
: used? Thanks in advance for helping. jim kretz

Yes you can use bare Dacron (trade name) as a peel ply, but it's usually coated Dacron to make the release easier. Yes I use Dacron/epoxy and glass, works great.

I use uncertified aircraft unshrunk Dacron in the 3 ounce per square yard range of weight (Aircraft Spruce is a good source and are online). It heat shrinks well gives a nice tight cover with little effort.

I've used from 3.2 ounce tight weave fiberglass up to 6 ounce, though any weight will work. The lighter cloth gives a lighter boat that requires some care in use, the heavier is more rugged. It's a single ply of glass, the idea is the glass flexes with the epoxy, if more plies are used it gets thicker and more prone to cracking, thin is good. Example of weight, my first try at this method, with lots of extra weight in it (like 3/4" plywood frames), uses 3.8 ounce Dacron and 6 ounce cloth and the boat is 19 feet long, it weighs 34 lbs. An average boat using this method can be quite light weight.

Bill H.

Bill H.