Continuing Fiberglassing of Bottom and Inside Vent Bezel

Here's the bottom all sanded and ready for fiberglass.

Fiberglass laid on.  Future builders and those getting started take note:

CLC doesn't provide any extra cloth.  I always cut it a bit long and trim it, and as you can see I ran out before the bottom was covered.  Even though I had some left over from previous projects that I used here and there, e.g., the three squares for the vent bezel, I still didn't have enough!  I'm glad I still have some extra to patch in that missing area with.  Anyway, looks like you'll need to be extra careful and always measure out just enough.  Hold on to any you cut away for possible future needs.

I added the extra here at the front, so that the overlap is on the bottom, not on the transom and quarter panels.  I only plan to sand the bottom enough for paint to stick--not going to worry about hiding joints like this one.

At this point, the bottom has received two coats of epoxy.  The manual doesn't call for a second coat, but I think it's a good idea, to help avoid sanding into the fiberglass cloth.  I add the second coat when the first coat has started to cure but is still a bit tacky.  You can probably tell from this photo that I didn't do that great a job on the corners around the end of the butt block.  It's a pretty big job and I couldn't spend a lot of time messing with those areas before the epoxy started to kick so I had to move on. 

So I sanded the excess off and patched those areas.  I found that I was able to make a small patch of cloth conform nicely to the shape.  More rounding of the butt block corner might have solved this.

This is after the second coat of epoxy.

I'm doing the same patching on the corners.  Most of them were OK, but I decided those corners might take a lot of abuse, so a little reinforcement won't hurt.  I'll be doing the same thing on the front end of the shell.

Here's the inside of the vent bezel all sanded and ready for fiberglass.  It's still damp with alcohol at this point--that dried in a few seconds.

 The cloth has been applied,

and two coats of epoxy.  You may remember that the edges of the bezel were just barely touching the shell, but I believe after the fillets and all the fiberglassing it is going to be plenty strong.