Glassing inside?

[Ed Houston]

I am currently sanding the inside of my Prospector Ranger and thinking ahead to the glassing stage.

I had a couple of problems with the glass floating when I did the outside and am a little apprehensive about the inside.

Looking at the tools used for fiberglass work at the boat store they have a small metal roller with what looks like a series of one inch and half inch washers along the roller axle, the guy in the store tells me it’s used to remove air bubbles in the glass and to distribute the resin throughout the lay-up.

Has anyone used these types of rollers on their boats?

If so what are the pros & cons?

Has anyone got thoughts they could share on these rollers?

Thanks
Ed

[Glen Smith]

As far as I know those rollers are used when working with glass matte and not with cloth. I think they would create more problems than solutions.

Have you checked out John Michne's website concerning glassing? http://www.michneboat.com/ click on Builder's Corner then on Fiberglassing-101.

You have to keep an eye on the glass and epoxy after the application and press down on any uplifting cloth with a corner of the squeegee to keep it flat on the wood.

[Ed Houston]

Thanks Glen

I will take a look at the web site.

My main issue is not wanting to remove too much resin but leaving enough to do the job my confidence in my ability with the squeege is fairly low. I think I am going to lay some cloth on a couple of pieces of ply wood and practice the pressure etc before I do the inside. The glassing stage is the most taxing stage of the project, give me the wood work any day!

Thanks again.

Ed

[Patrick Miller]

Hi Ed,
Glassing the inside in my experience certainly seems to present the most potential problems. Any pores or gaps in the woodwork can be a potential pocket of air waiting to escape through the resin before it has cured. These little bubbles seem to pop out every time your back is turned so you need to be on hand, watching until the set up is well under way.
A professional boat builder nephew of mine advises me that I should aimr for the hottest environment to start with then let the temperature drop while glassing. This he says will really such the cloth onto the woodwork. Also the professionals use an aerosol type glue called " airtack" It is invissible upon application and really holds the cloth in place while glassing. I haven't used it myself yet but aim to for my next project.
Check out John Michne. He offers sound advice and his working methods are good as well. I have had the good fortune to meet his and inspect his work. He is a real craftsman. He is also good at replying to emails.
Good luck with your fibreglassing. When building my first canoe I checked out each stage two or three times with the book before proceeding and didn't know about this site either.
Patrick.

[Todd Bradshaw]

The disk type of roller is often called a "bubble roller" as it helps get air bubbles out of the layup. They are at their best for high-speed production layup work using thinner polyester or vinylester resins. I wouldn't bother to buy one for strip building. You aren't in that big of a hurry or working with heavy fabric. Actually, my favorite tool for inside glassing is a disposable "squeegee" 4"-5" wide, 3" tall and 3/8"-1/2" thick cut from a block of ethafoam packing foam. It's firm enough to get the glass down tight and remove excess resin, but soft enough to generally prevent squeezing too much resin out of the fabric. Cheap, too.

Keep in mind that the majority of the "bubbles in the cloth" that form on inside glassing jobs aren't really bubbles, but rather places where the cloth is being pulled away from the wood due to the fact that you're essentially draping fabric into the inside of a bowl-shaped object. The natural squeegee and/or roller motion seems to be from the center of the canoe's bottom toward and up the sides. A bit too much pressure can pull the fabric off of the wood in the hollowed areas. The best way to fix these things during the process is to go back into these small areas and push the squeege downward, into the boat (or toward the center or bottom) generating a little bit of slack in the cloth and coaxing it back down onto the wood. During the early wet-out stage you can actually move the cloth around quite a bit by working it in different directions with the tool. Feel free to apply squeegee pressure in any and all directions in the process of getting a uniform saturation without bubbles, thin spots, over-filled spots, etc. The other thing that I really like about the cheap foam squeege is that after the cloth is down tight you can very gently go over the surface and wind-up with a really nice, very uniform fabric texture on the surface that will rival any hand layup you'll see on production boats. It makes both a good non-skid interior if left as is, or a good even base if you choose to fill the inside cloth texture with subsequent coats of resin and go for the smooth look..

[Doug]

Ed,
This may be of help; http://www.greenval.com/FAQglassinside.html

Doug