Got a buddy who is going to buy a 15'4" gheenoe this week and wants to fiber glass a deck on the front and back and a seat in the middle. Neither of us have done much fiberglassing. Any advice from anyone who has dealt with it a good bit?

Think draggin built a glass mudboat last year, might try pming him he may or may not share some insight with you.

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better get ya a chop gun. too much trouble to hand lay that shit

Not sure how much a chop cost but you can buy the cloth in fairly large sheets and for the really small stuff you can always cut tiny pieces and mix it with resin to get those hard to do spots. I guess it all depends on budget

Are the decks going to be flush with the top? If so you can lay visqueen on a hard flat surface and layer your glass with resin on that. Once dry it will release off the visqueen. Once hard, cut them to fit on top and glass them in. You can do something similar for the seat. Make a mold with wood covered in visqueen and do the same as the decks.

Chopper guns are insanely expensive. It would be a breeze to hand lay a little project like that.

Are you okay with having plywood cores? If so, build it in plywood, fair it with bondo, and glass away!
Fuck gelcoat.... it aint worth the hassle and it's too delicate.
Get you some fiberglass pigment to match the boat color and mix it into the resin. Then mix your hardener just a little hotter than you normally would.

He's gonna put in the money necessary but I don't think he's willing to get a chop gun

If we did plywood floors do you think it would be too heavy?

Cores, not floors

Why not make it out of aluminum? Wont be much heavier, and we have an abundance of aluminum fabricators on here that I'm sure you wont have any trouble finding someone to make a couple small decks and a seat.

should be fairly easy project. you can get melomean? board at home depot and use it as your mold. wax it with auto wax and it will relaese. you can also use floresent light covers as a non skid. strips or blocks of iso foam will stiffen the deck as long as you cover them well ans roll the sides down good. it makes lots of 90 degree corners everywhere, very strong. gel is not to bad to work with just follow the instructions and use the proper wax. as for attaching it to the boat, make sure you rough up the area you are glassing to and clean it with aceitone. if you dont use gelcoat you will need awlgrip or something like it as most paint wont stict to bare fiberglass.

mold release is not expensive. use the right shit. its well worth it,

use 1/4" A/C fir plywood. its light and strong and rot resistant.

If you go solid glass it will last 100 years.

If you glass over fir plywood it will last 30 years and save you a fuck-load of time.

1/8" luan door skin is also a pretty good core material.

If you want to be super light and spend a little more money you can use foam core or balsa core. (not any foam or model building balsa. they have to be purpose built products for use as laminate cores)

Where to get glass from for hand laying?

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Hand lay that baww, it'll b much stronger, and cheaper. Put ur skin coat down real wet, then put ur layers. Once the hardner starts to pop off, stop! Let dry. Sand it a bit, wipe with acetone, and start putting more layers. Any questions pm me

Is the boat made of fiberglass or pvc. Glass won't stick to pvc. Keep it light. Get some 3/8 or 1/2" in tusa board lighter and stronger than plywood and it will not rot or soak up water, it is made to be used a core. Use a good woven and epoxy to keep it light but strong. Get some Morton epoxy kevlar truck bed liner and spray it on with a 35 dollar gun.

JD

What epoxy and glass would ya recommend?

I built 2 boats last yr a 14' with a longtail on it and a 10' for the sta's down here in florida.i used this stuff called plascore. a single layer of fiberglass on each side makes it hard as a rock.

Unless you used some heavy stitch mat I would be nervous about the strength of the seams and joints with just one layer.

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the transom has about 3 layers of glass but the deck is a single layer of 1/8th oounce fiberglass. most marine lumber companies have the plascore. it comes in a bunch of different sizes and I only paid 30-35 dollars a sheet. my buddy is also about to put a deck on his gheenoe he's going use the plascore too

Polyester resin from auto parts store works just fine. Epoxy resin many times will be twice the price. I just picked up some polyester last night for 39.99 autozone. And 25ft of 8oz biaxial cloth for 35 on ebay. Enough to do a small layout boat

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Yea I'm not sure what he's talking bout

I have use high density foam cores, tusa board is just as tuff as plywood at a fraction of the weight. and core mat. Foam cores and tusk are real expensive. Thicker sheet of tusa get heavy.

JD