Glassing the Hull and Fairing - Part 2...

Draping the Fabric...

First layer - working our way aft
smoothing out wrinkles.

Here is where we ventured into uncharted waters... sort of.  We had never used Xynole fabric before but expected two things from all we had read:
One, it ate copious amounts of resin during wet out; and
Two, it would drape wonderfully over tight curves and irregular shapes.  Both proved true. The initial wet out used close to 6 gallons of resin (filling ate 2 to 3 more) and using soft drafting brushes it was easy to move the cloth into position and push into corners with a few caveats...

Figure 2 - completed fabric
 ready for epoxy

The problematic joint between keel and hull was tough to get flat and smooth.  It wanted to pull away from the joint and create an air pocket under the fillet.  We had draped the cloth up to the point you see in Figure 2.  We didn't realize this until we tried to wet it out.

We made a few decisions along the way.  The first was to allow the fabric to overlap at the chines.  The first layer was centered over the keel and overlaps at the back and front.  There is enough "cling" that allows the fabric to stay put with little to no securing along its length.  We secured the fabric with blue tape around the transom to keep it from sliding forward as we brushed and smoothed the cloth out.  It went quickly and within a few hours we were ready for epoxy.  We had a combination of squeegees and 1/4" nap rollers to spread. The temp had dropped being October and the shop temp was around 70.

Disaster strikes (learning event)...

We mixed around 24 oz of epoxy resin, divided it and took our stations. We had visions of us working opposite sides of the hull starting at the bow, working the bottom and progressing toward the sides.  The epoxy was thick and we poured it on and started trying to work it. It disappeared like we had just poured it in a sponge.The rollers we had at the ready just grabbed the fabric and pulled it up, distorting it. The squeegees did much the same and the fabric was hardly wetting out where double layered, just sort of floating.  We knew that this was not going to work.
We stopped, contained it as much as possible and left it.  The biggest mistake we made was not leaving ourselves enough time to do this.  We both had a 2 hour window and this was not going to happen.  We backed up and punted.

Tools for the job...

So, I needed to tackle a few issues.  One was the wet out of the doubled layers.  I could have backed
up and peeled off the side panels and wet out the bottom first.  We kind of messed ourselves up with a few square feet of hardened epoxy (24 oz) locking both pieces together and to the hull.  I have seen folks using laminating rollers and decided to order two 6" long x 1" diameter rollers.  They look like stacks of edge sharpened washers and spacers stacked on a paint roller frame.  The beauty of it is that you can put pressure on the fabric and mash it into the epoxy without having surface area that would lift the fabric back up.

Also, I needed to get the shop temp up.  The next time around I would have it around 80 which totally changed the wet out properties of the epoxy.  Viscosity was totally different.
I will also mention my hot knife cutter which was used to trim the fabric as we draped it the first time but also came in handy for cutting along the keel fillet, thereby, separating the keel drape from the hull bottom.  It worked good.  Xynole is a polyester fabric, not fiberglass, so it was possible to "hot knife" it instead of cutting with a razor.
The last piece of the puzzle was needing more help and my son in law Adam stepped up to help. Thank God!  Adam is active duty Coast Guard, home for a short while while we celebrated the birth of our second Granddaughter, Emma.  The Redwing will be named after our first Grand baby, Addy Beth, so I guess there is a second build in the future so older Sis can't rub baby Sis's face in it. Anyway, Adam has spent (as most do full time on any ship) his fair share of time painting (and mixing paint). He says the commercials say its all about diving out of helicopters to rescue floundering sailboats or chasing drugs dealers and terrorists from our shores, but its really mostly chipping, scraping and painting.  He had become a master of those skills whether he wanted to be or not. His help was crucial in a "wet out" this large and we owe him big time.  The batches were mixed in 2 qt quantities and he rolled them out over and over and over (and over). In between, he grabbed squeegees, rollers, whatever and helped move it around. I admired his extremely thorough mixing technique and have tried to duplicate it ever since.  My epoxy batches seem more consistent now anyway.

Wet Out...

Mahogany transom after epoxy seal coat

Wet out hull - 6 gallons later

This was much more straight forward once the missing pieces were plugged in.  Adam started mixing batches and we started pouring.  This time we paused after the pour.  We knew that we needed to wait and let the fabric soak through and get heavy as it penetrated the plywood underneath.  This was one mistake on the failed attempt and I had forgotten that you had to be patient and confident about the process. We had plenty of buckets and as we finished one we would turn it upside down to drain off.  Hot work in the Tyvek suits and respirators but it progressed.  The sides ended up being easier than the bottom.  The keel sides were the toughest at a 90 degree angle. The sides were just a matter of pouring along the chine and working it around with the squeegees.  It would seem to be running toward the edge but as the fabric soaked it up, it would slow to a crawl.  Easy.  Then rolled out the overlaps with the laminate rollers.
It took the three of us about 4 hours of solid mixing, pouring and working the epoxy in the cloth.  By
the time we got done it wasn't very stressful to make a pour down the sides and we kept working the doubled up layers.  We also laid a coat on the transom to be covered with clear finish in the end. We left it alone and called it a day.

Final Sanding and Fairing...
This took some time and honestly has been a learning experience in what we thought was going to be a pretty straight forward process from all we had read.  I'll explain...

Lots and lots of dust...

From what I understood, we would just roll an additional 3 coats on and sand down flat having built the surface up sufficiently not to get back into the cloth.  I had also read that sanding into the cloth was very difficult and would be a hard thing to do given its abrasion resistant qualities.  I agree with this to a point, but folks you can sand through an edge or corner in a second so be careful.  Using Ruel Parker's instruction in his Sharpie book on finishing an xynole covered boat, I used a 4-1/2" grinder and flap disk pad to grind the overlapping joint edges down.  This was very aggressive and would have been better off doing this with a belt sander.  It chewed through the fabric just fine without leaving the irregular dips along the fabric edges that the grinder did (careful here too, but don't waste your time RO sanding to level). I will say that the polyester was very nice when it came to the itchiness that sanding glass cloth causes.  Orbital sanding takes forever on hard cured epoxy and the temptation is to get on the sanders edge to "speed" things up a bit. This will only leave a wavy surface.

My recommendation on leveling is... use a belt sander (good technique) with 80 grit belt, then 60 grit RO then 80, then 150 grit. The 80 grit orbital didn't remove the 80 grit belt sander scratches but the 60 did a nice job of it. We did not use the belt sander on the sides once glassed.  Our overlap was primarily on the bottom where it should be. We rolled out two fill coats once the heavy leveling was done on the bottom, sanded with 80 grit to level bottom and sides as much as possible and then switched to a knife edge steel trowel (kind you use to work concrete) to skim coat the surface using US Composites Fairing Filler mix.  It is a proprietary blend of fillers and worked really well.  Use small batches (12oz at a time) because a little bit goes a long way.

Note the faired and sanded surface on right
and irregular rough surface on the left before skim coat of filler

At this point it was a lot of my Dad doing the heavy lifting on the sanding duties as my elbow was in a brace after having the triceps tendon reattached to the bone.  I did what I could left handed and he took ibuprofen.
After roughly 12 to 16 hours or more of sanding we are down to the final spot fill and touch up before priming.  The surface looks fair and flat but a coat of epoxy primer will tell on us.  That should come over Christmas week with me coming out of this brace and taking a week off work. It isn't shown here but we put one last fillet along the keel/hull joint.  It still needs to be touched up with 150 and I'll amend this page to reflect that before posting the "Paint Posting" so stand by.  Injury and all, I think we will get her flipped after New Year's!

Light band on bottom running under the sander's dust bag is the overlap of material.  the dark bands on
either side of it is the skim coat fairing filler that leveled up the thickness difference.

 Gratuitous Injury Update...

5 days after surgery

2-1/2 weeks later - healing like a young pup :)
Gray headed old dog that is!
A product of my wife constantly telling me to "Put that down" or "I'll get that you idot!"
It worked!