First fiberglass experience this weekend. Its good, bad, ugly and beautiful. I fiberglassed the hull with 3.2oz 1678 from Thayercraft. I seal coated Sat. night at around 10:30 and woke up at 6:00 kicked the heat on, had a nice breakfast and went to work by 7:00. I planed to run the fabric on a bias, since some say it drapes better. So after unpacking the roll from Thayercraft and rolling a piece onto the hull and cutting it off the roll I noticed it had a serious static charge. Walking past the end long threads would reach for me. I hope it wasn't an omen of things from the deep. The fabric looked pretty well placed so I cut the extra off the sides, but took a couple inches too much at one end. I thought I could lift the fabric and reposition it. With each lift it pulled together in the middle and looked more wrinkled and was not moving, at least where I wanted it. By now it was 7:30 and I thought I OK to ask my wife Katie, for help. She reluctantly got up and together we managed to position and smooth it out.

1. I could not get the fabric on the stems to fit without wrinkles. Is this the stiffer 1678 or are there techniques I should know?

2. If it will not drape do you slit it and fold it over and make it lie flat? Or come back later and put another piece on? (My plan this time)

Once the fabric was in place I mixed my epoxy and started coating it. At first I tried using a squeegee but was getting too much on the floor. The roller worked pretty well. I put too much epoxy on the bow and stern and had some drips. That meant I had to wait until the cure was hard enough to scrape. That gave me time to do more research and re-watch Nicks videos, where he showed his technique, and gets it right to the edge but keeps it off the floor. Having tried it now it made more sense.

The second fiberglass was parallel to the centerline and draped much better. On the Bow I could get it to drape but the stern curve was too much.

3. Should I put tape or a strip cut from my fiberglass on just the stems or run it the length of the boat?

The second coat went on much easier, and faster. I was able to squeegee the middle of the boat (with only a few drips on the floor) and and Katie rolled the ends. I did not get any runs on the steep parts, probably because the epoxy was not as warm and we were more careful. The second coat was done around 6:00. Back around 10:00 for the fill coat.

All in all it went pretty well. There are some things in the epoxy like squeegee cloud lines, which only show when the light is just right. Then there are bubbles. I have decided to let it cure and sand the surface to even it our before the final fill coat. I also need to glass the ends.

How would you fix areas like this one that does not have enough epoxy?

And this area where I did a poor job with the fill coat. It really shows in the morning with the light coming through the window. I couldn't see it with the flatter shop lights at night.