Fiberglassing kayak question

[lehkeary]

This is my first boat-building project - a 14' cedar strip kayak. Last summer, my husband fiberglassed the outside of the hull (I was pregnant so couldn't be near the fumes). There are a few spots that are whitish and you can see the weave of the cloth...there is more than one coat of epoxy on this thing, which means if the cloth was starved to begin with, we're going to have a devil of a time fixing this (if in fact it can be fixed). :eek:

Any suggestions??

Although I suspect this will be a lot of work, I think we'll have to sand down to the cloth in those spots and try again. Is there a way to do this without damaging the cloth that's on there, or do we have to (somehow) remove that cloth and patch it with new stuff? I'm guessing adding more epoxy as it it is not the way to go.

Also, at the moment, the kayak is in our basement (we had originally started building it in a barn we were renting for storage before we bought our house). Should we be worried about fumes coming up when we start to epoxy the rest of it? Or would it be better to bite the bullet and move the kayak yet again to somewhere (parent's garage perhaps?) that won't harm anyone?

Thanks for your help!!!

-Lianne

[Wild Wassa]

Concerning epoxy fumes, if you get in and do the job quickly, it is all over and dry within a day and a night ... so it is not really a problem, if you don't linger around the fumes after you have applied the epoxy. A well ventilated workspace is best of course. For most users, epoxy only becomes a problem for long term use or overly sensitive skins or sloppy workers.

"There are a few spots that are whitish and you can see the weave of the cloth..."

Do you mean you can see the weave of the cloth in the whitish areas or just generally see the weave of the cloth?

In the later, seeing the weave of the cloth, the fairing is just underdone and is still to be finished. Keep going until the epoxy has corrected that.

"A few spots," that means just a few, or many like several? If it is only two or three small areas they can be dealt with easily, carefully cut around the faults (being whitish they are starved so should peel off relatively easily), carefully feather the step of the cut and then lay new carefully cut to size cloth in the gap and in the same orientation as the existing cloth. If it is several whitish spots it might be easier to remove the cloth in total and redo.

With the whitish areas, when the cloth was first wetted out, was it wetted out by applying the epoxy from the top down or epoxy was applied to the boat and while still wet the cloth was then layed down and then wetted out from the top down? That will determine how hard it will be to lift the cloth in the white areas.

Just a top down wetting out originally on a tight weave of cloth can be peeled back somewhat easily if it was starved by epoxy.

If the weave was open or a bottom up wetting out was originally done, removing the cloth will be much harder to do. This can be done by applying heat, scraping with a carbide scraper as much of the old epoxy as is needed and then sanding the timber to give a good foundation again.

If your whitish areas resulted because of a fold in the cloth or a bit of out gassing and are only a few (at a finger tip size) these can be just sanded back and epoxy reapplied, you might not even notice them after refairing.

Good luck, I hope your repairs are easy.

warren.

[whb]

Warren,

If the spots are small what about injecting epoxy with some sort of syringe.

Howard

[Wild Wassa]

G'day Howard, it has been a while Mate. I hope you are well.

If they are just voids under the cloth, you can inject epoxy as you suggested. Any that have lifted could need reducing by cutting to allow them to sit flat. I'd pictured the white areas as being just that whiteish but still flat. Again you can stick them down but whether it overcomes or corrects the white ... well you would just have to see as you progressed.

I did this monstrocity below recently, it was a problem with the cloth. Too many folds in old cloth over time had caused the cloth to take it's own shape. The sheathing was worked hard, to correct the problem but it would just not stay down. I was given dodgy cloth to use on the job. The cloth was stripped off about 10 hours after applying and the dodgy stuff was replaced with quality cloth from a roll (unlike the old cloth I was given that had been folded into a small package from a hardware store). The new cloth was layed with not one problemo. It isn't just how you do it, the quality of the materials used, matters heaps.


http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid206/pa4690ade1254d205af110572fd5f03fd/eed9b513.jpg



Originally when I took the photo (above) the next day after sheathing, I thought it was outgassing but there were no voids it had to be many folds done over tme. Allowing the client to dictate to me proved profitable in the end. I must try it more often. I'm glad it happened ... otherwise I wouldn't have this great shot.

The photo below is how I imagined leakeary's 'white and starved' cloth looks. Flat but the white is fixed and needing more than just another swiff of epoxy.


http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid206/pc824a89f67a9bf6e11ecff72bb9f6a89/eed9b4fd.jpg


Warren.

[Todd Bradshaw]

You can also get whitish patches from cloth which has been contaminated (or even damp) and which looks just fine until the resin hits it. Or, if you're the type that sands before completely filling the weave you can bruise the weave if the resin is not yet fully cured, fracturing fibers where they're being stretched/moved or disturbed. This will also yield white patches. Further coating or application of resin in any way will not make spots disappear from either of these causes. You pretty much need to cut them out and apply small glass patches. A stripper hull is so thin, and if only glassed on one side, so flexible that trying to remove all the cloth may simply destroy the hull. It would have to have an awful lot of bad white spots before I'd even think seriously about trying it. Tell us more about the spots or post or link to some photos of them and maybe we can narrow this down a bit.

[Steve Lansdowne]

If all else fails, you could paint the hull, which in the long run might make it easier to maintain, though likely as not you want to have everyone admire your bright-finished handiwork.