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Cool Glassing story!
By:Kris Gabrielson
Date: 7/30/1999, 11:33 pm

I am a 37 year old man who has done eveything imaginable with his hands. I've worked construction, dug ditches, cleaned toilets, built furniture, worked on multi-million dollar jet fighters, rebuilt all kind of engines from motorcycles to porsches, and currently work in a maximun security jail. I was how ever, scared as you know what to start fiberglassing the kayak (Guillemot Coastal) that I am building. All those hours spent putting the hull and deck together. Not to mention the premium price I hand to pay for 18 foot CLEAR redwood. I was SCARED!

I jumped in and did it and it worked out fine. It was not only fairly easy, it was alot of fun.

I saw later how easy it was. I built my cheek plates and they needed to be glassed before installing them. I sanded them smooth and cut the glass cloth to the appropriate size. I mixed the epoxy and put on my gloves.

My Beautiful little sweatpea, Kiana, my 4 year old daughter who had watched me glass the boat kept saying over and over, "Daddy, I want to do the glue!"

I figured, what the heck, said ok and off she went to the work bench to get some rubber gloves. She returned with my large rubber gloves on her 4 year old fingers. The fingers on the gloves were going every which way. She also returned with a spreader, an appropriate sized one at that.

She wouldn't let me do anything further. She insisted on doing it all by herself. She poured out some epoxy on the cloth and began spreading. She paid careful attention to the edges to get them fully wetted out. I stood there in amazement. This kid pays attention.

So if any of you out there are looking at the task of glassing and it seems frightening, just think of a 4 year old girl in San Jose, Ca who jumped right in and got the job done!

If I knew how to post a picture I would show you all some of her helping me scrape the glue of the hull.

Messages In This Thread

Cool Glassing story!
Kris Gabrielson -- 7/30/1999, 11:33 pm
Re: Cool Glassing story!
Dean Trexel -- 7/31/1999, 8:57 pm