Fiberglassing the inside

February 13, 2011
One of the difficulties of building the boat alone is missing some important directions.  I read through the booklet and before I do a step I reread the pages that I'm going to be working on.  With all that I missed an important instruction:  "You'll want to saturate all of the fabric in the boat before the epoxy fillets have cured."   Aaaargh!   It was seven pages ahead in the booklet from the step of putting in the fillets.  When I was working on the fillets, I assumed that they needed to cure before putting in the fiberglass--just like the epoxy in the planks.  I cut out the fillet sticks to the dimensions as stated in the manual, and I was careful about cleaning up the excess.  (Although as careful as I am, I still seem to miss some.  I've already learned how important it is to scrape up any extra epoxy--it's much more difficult to sand off later if I miss some.)   Anyway, I now have hardened fillets, and will just need to press ahead.  I don't see another solution.

I cut out fiberglass for each of the compartments and put them in place.  Then, I put a new layer of the "peanut butter" epoxy in the seam in the bow and added the strip of fiberglass. For the other fiberglass, I mixed the epoxy without any thickener and used a plastic putty knife and a bristle brush to wet the epoxy.  It turned out to be a lot trickier than I thought it would be.  The edges of the fiberglass unraveled and it was difficult to get it to lay flat. 

The dory is ready for the fiberglass.

Laying out the fiberglass for each compartment.

The fiberglass is coated in epoxy and the breast hook is in place.