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OK, delving way into Stupid Question territory here, but I'm getting close to piling on a bunch of cloth. I want to at least do the cabin trunk and dex before the weather gets awful...it might have already in these parts (23 inches of rain in 6 weeks...yes that is not a typo, 23 inches is correct).

I'm a bit of klutz when it comes to large pieces of cloth...so for those of you who have done it, how big did you go when applying the skin? I know Jerome used 80 cm width (by what length?).

So what I'd like to know is, what is too big? 18 feet by 80 cm sounds like an absolute clusterfack nightmare to me....I understand that smaller sections will result in more fairing and filling, but such is life, what?

Tim I don't know if I can be much of a help. It's not near as bad as you might be thinking. I started small with the cabin top. That wasn't bad so next the hole cockpit, then all the decks at one time. Finally after flipping the hole bottom at one time. It's nice to have a helper mixing but not necessary. How I did it was staging everything and double checking before starting. I weighed out both the epoxy and hardener in small batches (plastic cups) no more then 300g batches when mixed. When doing the bottom I think I had seven batches staged. The glass wets out nicely and you will be surprised how fast it goes. I rolled the epoxy on with a short nap roller, seemed to work well. By starting with small areas and working to the big ones you'll get an idea of how much to stage before starting each area. You can do more then you think with some prior planning. If you can get a helper just to mix batches when you need them the projects fly and when your done you'll wonder what all the worries were about.

Thanks, Jon. I like the idea of starting small....the other thread, here, was helpful too. Might give the foredeck a shot this weekend.
Did you all glass in your foot bensons when you covered the cockpit sole? or just do the sole while it was flat and then add the foot bensons afterward?

I glassed the bensons first then cut out for them when dry fitting the glass in the cockpit bottom. I thought it would be less of a challenge dealing with the radius and sharper angles first.

That's what I was thinking, too! Thanks, man!

Tim,
One thing that really helps is to pre fit the dry cloth and sort of correograph the moves. It is easiest to do the foredeck first on your first try. More gentlemanly height for working. when the cloth is cut to your likeing mark register marks with a marksalot on deck and on the cloth. mark the centerline with some dashes and that can give confidence. they will not be exactly where marked after working the wet epoxy through the cloth as the cloth stretches abit. Overlap the deck to hull about 2 to 3 inches. If you start fighting a craese in the cloth that won't stay down, snip it with scissors and lay the flaps on top of one another.

There are alot of ways to do the glass most are very simple stay away from "Scrimp for the easy home do it yourselfer"

good stuff, nags! thanks, I'll take your advice fer sher.

What is up Tim , great to hear to laminate the boat. As far as my experience goes, I went all out and laminated the hole upper everything in one go....and alone....with no one to pre mix... ! So I guess as Jon said it is not as bad as it seems What I did though is prepare a lot of small 10 pumps batches of resin . Then when needed, I just had to mix the hardener in.

If you take a look at that blog entry http://i550-hull270.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... -gown.html you will have a better understanding of what I did. As you already know my roll was only 80 cm wide, and what i did was just unroll it from bow to stern on both sides. Since my cockpit deck-to- sides were rounded, the cloth drapped nicely. The good thing also is that they overlapped at the bow, kind of naturally reinforcing that area. Actually on the front of the bow piece itself I must have something like 4 layers of cloth from all that overlapping ! With my beginners sailing skills, all sailors should be warned that I am ready for impact.
Then I laid the cloth for the cabin top and tried to do pretty much the same. using as large pieces as I could letting them naturally overlap, except I did not run them all the way to the bow. Then I worked smaller pieces for the cabin sides.
Then to keep all that cloth where it was supposed to, I used small pins, as a matter of fact the same pins I used at the beginning of the construction to hold the Tyvex patterns . The pins stayed on the cloth until I had laid enough resin and everything stayed in place.
For the cockpit floor, you bet I laminated it WITHOUT the bensons. I think it would have been really hard with the bensons on. And also because I dont think there is any need to do so. My benson were previously laminated and they were really strong, I just placed them on the floor later with normal epoxy-silica filet.
One hint for laminating the rather long parts. Use a squeegee and make that resin just flow on top of the fiber. Use large 8 shape movements, get into a rhythm, and you will have all that cloth wet out in no time. That technique comes from laminating surfboards, which I used to do while I was at school. The result is a very clean lamination, without any excess resin to shine. It works great on the upper sides, cockpit sole, front deck and of course the whole hull !

Go for it Tim, the lamination was one of the best part of the whole building !

Big piece of advise #1. In tricky areas only use small batches of resin. I worked too long on one spot with a batch in my hand. Just as I poured the balance out onto the large flat section it went off.

Big piece of advise #2. You can do the bottom with 2 lengths of 60" cloth with a seam down the middle. 50" cloth won't make it and you have seams down each chine. Your choice on which is easier to fair.

Big piece of advise #3. Layout out the cloth and cut it to fit. If it lays flat easily when dry, it should do the same when wet. If it doesn't, then it won't when you add epoxy. Overlap any seam by 2" minimum.

Just go for it! I found that I could do the initial wet out and then take a nice little break and then come back and it would be ready for a 2nd coat. I only used 2 coats and then added fairing on top of that, not sure if that was the best approach.

Good luck! Kevin.

..please be surre to user a resperarator ,espectially doing largger areasa of epoxy.
.....utherrwise,yerulll endap takling uhnd rithing rike ah do--NAHT GUD,ehnytime
....

Thanks for all the Advice, fello builders.

The advice given above is well timed for me also - I'm starting to glass the deck. I especially appreciate Jon's advice to glass the bensons first and to then cut out holes in the glass that covers the rest of the cockpit/deck. I was really concerned about being able to negotiate around the sharper corners of the bensons while using larger pieces of glass cloth. The bensons look good now, and it was easy to fit the glass to the corners with the smaller strips.

I'm getting ready to lay down the cloth on the rest of the deck. Here is my question: Is there any reason why the cloth sections have to be overlapped (if the seams don't meet on seams in the wood that is)? I was planning on using the same technique used in flooring - overlapping the cloth, running a razor along a straight edge, and then removing the cut off overlaps. It seems like there would be a lot less fairing involved this way. Am I compromising strength?

I would overlap the fiberglass. You may be compromising some strength by not overlapping the pieces. I'm sure someone else can give you a more detailed explanation then I can. When you start wetting the glass out it will move and you will likely loose the seam your thinking about, causing overlapping or worse, separating. Don't worry about causing extra fairing. The overlaps in my glass job were the easier part of fairing the deck and hull. By the time you get a few epoxy coats on top of the glass to fill the weave they almost go away. I ran biaxial cloth and a product called Dynel on both the sheers and chines then faired before glassing. I know some used Kevlar products in the same areas before glassing. I guess when it gets down to it my advise would be not to short cut trying to avoid the miserable long board and fairing. It's all part of the building experience, you'll do just fine.

........if you're -determined- to reduce the bulk at an overlap,,you could try pulling some threads out of the cloth where they overlap and just have the crossthreads or grind the plywood back under these areas.This 2nd method was used on mirror dinghies.At first this idea seams(bad pun spelling error) dodgy,but with proper tapering,and the fact that epoxy/glass should be tougher than the plywood...this could be an effective though time-consuming idea.

......I'm SURE there'll be PLENTY of fairing anyways

Yes you want to over lap the glass as you need the 2 pieces of glass to be bound together with the epoxy. Otherwise as the boat flexes that seam will become extremely evident. This type of seam is easy to fair and sand out as Jon mentioned. I had one port side bottom area (where the previously mentioned batch of epoxy went off) that I had to cut out the glass and lay a fresh piece with a nice seam all the way around. The bigger problem are those low spots that you don't know about until you hit the boat with the long board after it's glassed. I faired before and still had spots afterwards that needed work. The glass kind of tightens up on the boat as it dries which effects the fairing. Plus the wood will flex without glass and not so much once glassed.

Good luck and GO FOR IT and POST A PIC!!!

Kevin.