Greg's GT23 Blog

[OzzyC]

Not sure what the weight of the cloth is. I'll have to get with Greg and get back with you. I'll get some close-up shots of the boat within the next day or so, and post them so you can see and make recommendations.

[OzzyC]

I didn't find out what weight the cloth is, but it is biaxial if that helps.

I've also taken several close up pictures. These are pics are pretty high res and very close up. They may take a few minutes to load if you're not running broadband.

http://12.30.143.22/hbb/epoxy-close-up.jpg

http://12.30.143.22/hbb/epoxy-close-up2.jpg

http://12.30.143.22/hbb/epoxy-close-up3.jpg

http://12.30.143.22/hbb/epoxy-close-up4.jpg

http://12.30.143.22/hbb/epoxy-close-up5.jpg

http://12.30.143.22/hbb/epoxy-close-up6.jpg

http://12.30.143.22/hbb/epoxy-close-up7.jpg

[Gubbs]

Hey OzzyC,

It looks like 12 oz. I am only saying that because that's what the plans call for and it looks like the stuff I will be using as well. Sorry to see what you are up against. I put my bottom fiberglass on one sheet at a time, and almost started the 3rd sheet when I noticed that I did not have enough epoxy. Fortuneately I noticed and quit before I had any problems. I hope someone can tell you how to fix this without too much trouble.

My GT23 is now in bed for the winter. No more work until spring.

Cheers,

Bill

[tech_support]

If you can get it to wet out, there should not be any problems. The larger white areas are going to be easy, its the spots that have been half way wetted out that will be diffucult to make right - you will have to really work the epoxy into the glass to wet out the dry fibers.

[OzzyC]

If you can get it to wet out, there should not be any problems. The larger white areas are going to be easy, its the spots that have been half way wetted out that will be diffucult to make right - you will have to really work the epoxy into the glass to wet out the dry fibers.

I can handle that. Heck, I could have even handled a "You've got to scrap the back half of the cloth and start over." That was my worst-case scenario. A simple "you've gotta really work the epoxy" is a bonus answer for me. Thanks.

[OzzyC]

We got the cloth laid out; it didn't require us to cut off the area that was partially wet and it didn't require us to scrap any cloth. In short, we used a heat gun to soften the previously-cured epoxy, and weighted things down in the areas that had bubbles. We used a cold metal weight on the bubbles, which helped quick-cool the epoxy, and ensure that the bubbles stayed flat. After things were flattened, we used the gun to warm things up, and a little extra elbow grease.

In the end I think it'll work out nicely. As always, I've updated the blog. Feel free to check it out for a few pics and some more detail http://houseboatbuilder.blogspot.com. I'll take some more pics next weekend, after the epoxy has cured, and let you all know how it worked out.

[tech_support]

good idea with the heat gun

[OzzyC]

The heat gun idea paid off. There are a few small areas where we have bubbles, and one or two small areas where the glass was slightly starved, but I am incredibly pleased with how well the heat gun idea worked.

In order to address the areas with bubbles, we are going to drill small holes into the bubbles, inject epoxy into the bubbles, and weight them down.

If you're interested in seeing pics of the work to date, you know what to do...
http://houseboatbuilder.blogspot.com

[OzzyC]

Be forewarned... today's post is a little off-topic. But since it's still technically part of "Greg's GT23 Blog", I'm still gonna post here, instead of the "anything else" forum.

For those of you who have been faithfully been following the blog, you may remember that I took a little diversion from the boatbuilding portion of the blog, and talked about how I've been using epoxy and fiberglass to repair the the tile in my shower. I've done more work there. If you're interested, head on over to http://houseboatbuilder.blogspot.com.

I've also been repainting my younger daughter's room, and I've got to say (without any humility whatsoever), that it's a really cool makeover. If you're interested in seeing it, you can check out my personal non-boating blog at http://ozzyc.blogspot.com.

Between these two projects and Christmas, I'm sure you can understand that Greg and I made no progress on the boat this week.

[OzzyC]

We laid some more glass yesterday, but I'm going to digress a bit.

You may remember in an earlier post that we had a couple of spots where the fiberglass didn't adhere to the plywood. Our initial plan was to drill small holes in these areas and fill them with epoxy. Greg changed his mind. Instead, he cut out these areas with a knife, and filled it with a mixture of epoxy and fiberglass filler. My camera batteries were dead, so I don't have any pics of this, but I will attempt to get some pics posted soon.

After the fiberglass filling, we did a little last-minute sanding, and laid fiberglass on one side. We've now got about two-thirds of the exterior completely fiberglassed. We still have one side, and both transoms to do, but that should go relatively quick.