: I have finally finished stipping my first kayak. I designed it using the
: Bearboat program. I'm now at the stage of planing and sanding and am
: looking into sources for cloth and epoxy. I've measured my boat's widest
: point (38 3/4"). Most 6oz. cloth comes in 38" wide rolls. So
: here's my question: If I turn the boat diagonally as shown in Nick's book
: will I make up that 3/4" and have enough without having to buy
: 44" cloth? The boat is 17'6" and maintains 38 3/4" for
: about 3'.

If you use the 38 inch cloth and center it you will mathematically have a 3/8 inch shortage on each side. Actually, though, the glass will stretch a bit and should cover.

A couple of other things come into play, though:

The width of the cloth is nominal, it may vary by an inch or so. You really want to have an extra inch or two hanging over the edges so the cloth drapes right and sticks tightly to the hull. In this case you might want 42 inch wide fabric at this point.

You can 'piece in" a bit of scrap fabric. Just cut a strip 4 to 6 inches wide and 3 to 4 feet long, and overlap it and wet it out when you apply the big piece. You can fair out the minor bulge at the overlap with light sanding later. If you want, you can trim off the selvedge edge on the cloth before overlapping that edge. Or, lay your fabric so the selvedge edge is on top and is removed when you sand down the bulge. Selvedge edges are a bit less transparent than the other areas of the cloth. You only need to do this on one side, and the effect will be invisible.

consider not bothering about glassing up to the edge. When you join the deck to the hull you will cover this area with at least one layer of glass "tape" anyway. Cut 3 to 4 inch wide strips of glass cloth from the scraps and use these as reinforcements when joning the deck to the hull. Being wider than the usual glass "tape" they will make a secure bond and adequuately cover any portions of the sheer strip that might not have been previously glassed.

Buy a shorter length of 60 or 72 inch wide fabric. You'll probably need to do some modeling to figure out the length you'll need. Imagine laying a 19 foot piece of the fabric out flat and drawing a big "X" on it with a line going from the upper left corner to the lower right corner, and another line going from the lower left to the upper right. If you were to cut on those lines you would get 4 pieces of fabric. Now, imagine applying the two long triangles to cover the hull, with a wide overlap at the keel line providing a bit of extra ding and scratch protection. The shorter triangles would be more than enough for covering the deck. They would only overlap at a narrow spot on the sides of the cockpit coaming. Now imagine if you buy 38 feet of glass cloth. Draw out your "X" on the left 19 feet, and then draw another large "X" on the remaining 19 feet. Your double X pattern will leave a single large diamond shape in the center which you can use for a seamless exterior hull covering, and the remaining pieces are assembled to cover the interior of the boat. There will be more than enough excess material to provide "tape" for joining the hull to the deck.

If you did exactly as mentioned above, the center diamond shape would be 19 feet long, and 60 inches wide at the center. this is much wider than you need. Get some paper and try this in miniature, say with a scale of 1 inch or 1 cm equal to 1 foot. meausre the circumference of the hull and deck and make a paper model, to the same scale, of the fabric needed to cover these parts.

By carefully aligning the pattern on your model of fabric you can see how to angle it so that you get enough fabric for inner and outer coverings of hull and deck. You may be able to get by with a considerably shorter piece of 60 inch wide fabric.

Getting an extra 1/2 yard of 60 inch wide fabric, or an extra yard of 38 inch wide fabric leaves you with some excess for future repairs, or mistakes in cutting.

Hopw this helps.

Paul G. Jacobson