: Hi Paul;

: You seem to be 180 degrees out of phase with conventional thinking here.

Yup, at times I am indeed out of step with the rest of the folks here, but I think that is why they love me. I'm not crazy, just a tad eccentric. Come to think of it, while everyone was touting bead and cove, you decided to use flat-edged, beveled strips. And while all the books preach using staples, you built without them. Hmm, I think you can join me in being 180 degrees away from convention.

: If
: you put the smaller glass piece under the overall hull glass and got
: bubbles, that is what conventional wisdom says might happen at the seams.

Reread my last post. When I doubled up the fabric I got the same amount of bubbles as I did when I just had a single layer. If I didn't say that clearly, sorry. It is what I meant to say. Basically, I got an ocasional bubble regardless of the thickness, or number of layers of cloth.

I did not have any particular problems with bubbles at seams or at the edges, or where the edge of the inner piece of fabric ended.

One of my books, eithe Hazen or Gilpatrick suggested putting hte smaller piece down first and covering it with the larger piece. The thinking was that the weight of the larger piece wold hold the loose, cut edges down, reducing sanding. The concept worked well. The line where one layer of glass becomes two is nearly impossible to find -- and I have a pretty good idea where to look, too.

To my way of thinking the bubbles may be because of the air in the fabric being trapped in place as the resin is forced over the top of the weave. That is why I want to put a coat of resin on the boat first, and then use a squeegee to force the glass cloth through this resin, rapidly wetting it out. since the outer edge of the glass is not wet, air in the weave should be displaced by the resin coming up from underneath it as I apply gentle pressure to the top of the cloth with that squeegee.

: Now you are moving to layers of 2 oz. cloth on the basis of . . . ?

I think that with thin fabric I should get faster wet out. Several posts seem to indicate that multiple layers of thin fabric are stronger than a single layer of fabric. I'd go with two layers of 2 ounce instead of one layer of 4 ounce, and either 3 layers of 2 ounce or 2 layers of 3 ounce cloth instead of a single layer of 6 ounce. I'm leaning towards 2 ounce fabric due to the low price from Defender. Since I'll be using a lot of it, I'll definitely get a discount. I should get better use of the cloth, too, as I can piece it more easily. An overlap of 2 ounce cloth over 2 ounce cloth is a negligible thickness, while an overlap of 6 ounce cloth over another piece of 6 ounce cloth might be easily seen.

I'm thinking 2 ounce fabric would also be good for paddle blades, and for one of my other crazy ideas: making panels from woodstrips, and using those instead of expensive plywood for stitch and glue designs.

: I can't believe all the problems related on this board to glass wet-out, it
: seems pretty simple if you follow the advice of people who do it every
: day. I'll be glassing my deck shortly, so if I spoke out of turn you will
: know it soon by my silence after that event . . .

Nope, nope nope. If ya screw up ya gotta 'fess up. It is helpful to everyone else in this boat building community to hear about the mistakes as well as the successes. Think of it as your civic duty. It is the equivalent of the city putting up a street sign warning about bumps ahead.

: Best of luck with 2 oz. layups, I used those on my model R/C planes, Spidey

Thanks. I may need it. It will be a while before I get a change to play with it though. Several canvas covered boats to finish first, and I'm thinking of a lapstrake Guillemot. It would look like a combination of a stitch and glue and a woodstrip boat, be made from 3mm or 4mm plywood, and not need fiberglass except for an exterior skid pad on the bottom to protect against rocky landings. That will take a bit of thinking.

PGJ