Glass taping "hot" fillets

[Eric]

My extensive experience with filleting and taping is the impetus forpublishing the following method which will eliminate all air pockets and forever stippling/ diddling with a brush; and take less than half the time; and works well overhead such as in the transom: brush unthickened epoxy on the joint to be filleted and taped. Fillet the joint. Lay out all the (Precut) glass tape on a table protected by 4mil plastic. Wet out the tape ( no more than 2-3 pieces at a time depending on length) with a yellow squeegee- wet out generously, good and wet (1 1/2 times the epoxy that would wet it out on dry wood). Now carefully roll the wet tape up in a tight soggy roll that you can crawl into the camper with in one outstretched hand (not dripping through your hand, but pretty darn wet).  Unroll it in place on the now warm fillet smoothing it into the corner and onto the fillet with the pinky of your trailing hand ( the one that’s not holding the soggy roll). Its REAL EASY to get the air out from under it; it just wants to go into the inside corner/ conform to the fillet. True some epoxy is unavoidably left on the table, but this is less if one keeps using the same area to wet out subsequent strips. This method solves ALL the wet out, wrinkle, and air entrapment problems.  Do it this way once and I bet you’ll never diddle with a brush again worrying and worrying about tape pesky wrinkly 3″ tape that is so ubiquitous in stitch and glue boatbuilding.

[derek0]

Thanks, Eric, for a great tip! I have not enjoyed any of the steps in this build requiring FG tape on a fresh fillet so I am looking forward to trying your technique when I get to the pesky transom installation next week.  I’ll leave feedback on how it works for me.

[derek0]

Well, I have to admit that laying down the expoxy-saturated fiberglass tape on the fillet joints of the transom was a real treat.  Thanks for the tip!  Although I went through a few more pairs of gloves than I would if using a brush to wet out the tape I much prefer this method.  I did, however, still struggle with the little frayed bits of fabric at the ends of the tape blemishing an otherwise clean job.  Any suggestions for making tidy, flush cut ends on these joints?

[Eric]

Yes the cross weave ends of 3″ tape just want to unravel.  Its a big pain in the butt. Thatsnone reason I’ve always hated 3″ 9oz tape and have made my own biaxial tape for many of my projects. This is how I deal with it: stroke very lightly with the squeegee across the tape at the ends trying not to start the unweaving process. Likewise when rolling the tape up, try not to handle the very end. When unrolling over the fillet don’t smooth with your trailing hand pinky over the ends. Use very light strokes, the glass just wants to fall in place.  If you do get a strand unweaving gently coax it out over the flat floor or panel and leave it be, then once cured go back with a file and file it off the flat surface. If you can get it to sort of stand up above the surface that makes it even easier to file away after cure. Don’t leave  the strand over the end of the tape or in the fillet where it will be hard as granite to sand out

[Eric]

Since my last post a thought occured to me:  When I put my transom in tomorrow I will try putting one drop of EZbond on each end corner of the glass tape before wetting it out with epoxy on the table. I should have the end of the glass tape <span style=”line-height: 1.5;”>hanging over the edge of the table to do this because EZbond will stick to 4mm plastic. I’ll report on the results.</span>

[rovineye]

I passed on this technique as it seemed too messy. I finally gave it a try when joining panel 2 to 3.This is the way to go. I am using it with all glass tape. Wish I would have done it from the start. I use a brush vice spreader before rolling up and and only need a few dabs on the edges once rolled in place.

[mpilone]

I tried this technique as well and found that it worked great for straight line taping. I had a little trouble with it on the tight curve of the body panels (2 to 3 I think) where I had to cut a few reliefs in the tape to get it to lay flat. It worked, but cutting and manipulating the wet tape was a little tricky.

I found that I could roll the dry tape, then unroll about a 2 foot section on a table covered in plastic, saturate it, then roll the wet part and unroll more dry tape into the same spot (if that makes sense). Then I only have a 2 ft area of mess on the table and the new dry part gets laid in the leftover epoxy from the last section which speeds up saturation.

Thanks for sharing the tip.

-mike

[rovineye]

mpilone,

Quite right about trying to cut the wetted tape. Challenging but I got it done. I cut the tape to length, lay it over plastic on foldable table, wet what I can then double back the tape over what is already wet, zigzagging until it is all done the rolling it up. End result is the same.

[Author]

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