Clean glass work

[Jeff79Sceptre]

To all, as posted I removed the rotted stuff from the boat. I have the templates made to transfer over to Coosa. How wide do my fillets need to be for the 1708 tape to adhere cleanly.? I want this to look as good as possible. Grinding fiberglass sucks and I want a top notch finish. I'm not quite a neophyte but any helpful suggestions would be awsome. I have 1708 bi-ax, 1808 bi-ax and some 1208 for the schedule. And 1 piece of 10oz to go between the 2 pieces of 3/4 coosa. Temps are at 40 right now. I will be adding heat after initial filleting. Then next is the 6" wide tape. After seeing some beautiful work on here I need to kick it up a notch. Thanks!

[billythekid]

1708 tucks and bends easy, small radius is all that is needed. 1808 or stitch mat need about a 5/8" radius to make it easy to laminate. I used a laminate trimmer with a 1/4" round over bit for the foam on my stringers and wrapped them in stitch mat no problem because the weight was pulling down on them

[flyingfrizzle]

Try one of these pictured below, they are made to aid in radius in molds.
It came from Mini Craft of Florida, INC Phone # (800) 282-8244 on page 43 in their catalog. It work really well, much better than a spoons, sockets or other items I have seen used. They are made for installing wax fillet but work well for clay or thickened resin. They sell four different ones with 8 sizes. Each has two balls on each tool. I don't think they would cost much and be well worth the money. I would use the cake icing bag thing you see people use to put the thickened resin in the corners then run this over it and smooth it out giving you a perfect radius. A house hold spoon or a mechanics socket on an extension works well too if you cant get one.

[shine]

1708 or 1208 is your best bet for tabbing, the fiber orientation (45/45) allows more fibers to be "active" in the direction of th ejoint, plus it conforms better to curves.

To get a clean glass joint, you should work "wet on wet" with you fillet putty and the glass tabbing, so it all lays in there together.

here is my sole being tabbed to hull. I used epoxy so I did not need any matt, the tabbing is 2 layers of 12 oz biaxial.

here is the fillet (wood flour and silica mixed with epoxy)





tabbing of biax tape right over the "green" fillet. Epoxy used to wet out glass is the same used to mix up fillet putty - wet on wet, chemical (primary) bond

[shine]

How wide do my fillets need to be for the 1708 tape to adhere cleanly.?

on something like this, I use about 1" diameter PVC and the fillet tool. You have to keep it at a constant angle when dragging it along.