Great tips for fiberglassing a boat hull. In building "Victoria", the 9' tender for "Arabella", boat builder Bob Emser shows the proper way to add fiberglass cloth and epoxy resin to the boat hull. Several tips are revealed from making perfect epoxy fillets, adding microballoon fairing filler, final sanding too priming with 2 part epoxy primer.

Why one layer of fiberglass cloth? One of the goals of building the tender is that Steve Denette requested the boat be as light and strong as possible. He is fully aware that those two requests will be a balancing act to dial in the correct proportions. The answer came quite easily when we discussed Victorias construction with John Harris, owner of Chesapeake Light Craft. The full discussion can be viewed on A2A video “LIVE from 2022 The WoodenBoat Show”
One question I posed to John was other stronger fabrics like such as Dynel and Xynole both are much higher in abrasion resistance. Unfortunately they also require a lot more resin to wet out, as much as three times more than glass cloth. Because of the large weigh difference John’s recommendation was a single layer of glass cloth on the outside and inside of the hull. The combination of inside and outside will give the best weight to strength ratio.
“When such a resin (epoxy) is reinforced with glass fibers the resulting composite can have a tensile strength between 45,00050,000 psi. It also becomes extremely resistant to impact damage. This high strength for the relative low weight is the fundamental reason that fiberglass composites are popular.”
fibreglass.com

“If you’re going to make it, make it beautiful.”
Bob Emser

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Watch next

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Building Victoria. Arabella's Tender
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