Sorry to jump in but I have a question. When reinforcing wood with fiberglass should the wood be sealed with WestSystem epoxy and let cure first then when fully cured sand and then glass the areas of concern? Or do you glass the naked wood? Curious as I am almost done with my Whiplash build and want to reinforce the front sponsons and some critical potential impact areas as I am going to paint the boat. Thanks guys, your expertise is very helpful.
When you prepare a hull for a crash generally you add too much weight. Wood framed / sheeted hulls are the toughest
hulls on the water and its only necessary to have good glue joints without alot of puddles of epoxy in every cell.
Its great to seal with epoxy but scrape off every bit excess resin to keep the weight down.
When the top deck sheeting goes on I thicken the resin with a product called "cab-o-sil", you can thicken the epoxy
to the consistancey of "Vasoline", popcicle stick a thin layer on all the ribs and bulkheads an such, position the sheeting,
take it off and you can see where the structure has hit and missed. Dab on some more everywhere the frame contacted
and just a little more where it didn't quite touch, it dont take alot to make a good joint. The advantage of the thickened
epoxy is that you dont have any running excess resin puddling where you cant get at it to scrape it off.
Cab-o-sil can "tick off" the epoxy perdy quick if left in a cup while working. Spread it out on a doubled sheet of aluminum
foil taped down on the table , spread the epoxy out to about 1/8th to 3/16ths thick,, it will give you much more time to work.
JW