Jake

My 2 cents worth, but first, the disclaimer: I have never laid a hull or deck. I have cast several large vacuman bagged lay-ups for the boat, for the car and 4Runner using figerglass, fiberglass and carbon fiber, or just carbon fiber.

First, I noted you mentioned using glass mat. I wouldn't at all: it has next to no strength in either compression or tension and is really for adding thickness and density. I would substitute lyers of 6 oz fiberglass. I invite anyone else to add their thoughts, too. Also, there's a on-line book called "Marine Composites Handbook" Please read that one to really get a huge dose of info. It's at:
http://www.marinecomposites.com/

Second, in my large lay-ups. I painted on a release agent, then sprayed on slicone with teflon and let dry. I then laid the cloth on carefully, used a pint brush to smooth out the cloth, added a second layer, then applied epoxy onto the total of the two clothes varying between 11-12 oz (5 oz carbon fiber, 6 oz e-glass). For inside lay-ups I didn't vacumn bag since I got smart and though about what I was doing. After curing over two days to really be sure, I very carefully eased the glass casting off taking extreme care to prevent breaks. Go slow, you have all day to do it. An alternative is to lay out three to four layers of cloth and using a low-viscosity epoxy, do your epoxy application though a word of warning, wet-out is hard to really difficult to judge, bubbles will be present if using carbon fiber since it's opaque (like the kevlar, too). be careful and assume trapped air and dry areas.

Third, depending on the shape, I would carefully wash the face with hot water and gently rub with a green pad to remove the amines that to some amount, exist on the surface. Rinse with more warm water (amines are water soluble, gentle scrubbing helps a little, warm water helps a little more). Let dry, then apply more layers as described above.

Fourth, I cast a roof-liner two internal out of 10 layers layers of fiberglass and carbon fiber, with several "ribs" of carbon fiber; replaced the door crumple areas with glass composites, using vaccumn bagging for the door pieces. It works the same way in essence.

Fifth, the kevlar can be real tricky stuff to work with, and you just can't sand the stuff; you got to cut it. On the other hand, kevlar is resilient and for a hull it isn't a bad material, though death on tools. Aramides are UV sensitive though.

Sorry about the vagueness of my reply, I'm away from home with the laptop and I'm lucky I can connect to the server. I'll be really out of touch for several days but Rikki will answer any E-mails.

see ya and keep us up to date on progress and decisions

Mike