Is it possible to put too much epoxy when glassing the hull bottom. Obviously 26 coats would add weight and stiffen the bottom, potentially causing delamination problems. But how about four or five? I put my cloth on when the first coat of epoxy was green. The fill coat came next. I applied a third coat and have a few spots of minimal dimpling when the cloth is not completel filled. My plan is the selectively smooth a fill voids and underfilled areas with a plastic spreader and/or brush, and then apply a fourth and final coat of epoxy. Reasonable?
Dave
Yep, sounds great, though use a spreader instead of a brush, it's much more economical on epoxy.
I'm at the same step with my weekender. I have a question. On the fill coating did you use a filler and on susequent coats just straight epoxy? I've skim coated mine with filler and it looks like it needs more to fill the weave. I was hoping I could use just straight epoxy but I'm afraid it will run down the sides making a bigger mess.
I used straight epoxy throughout. Use a foam roller or plastic spreader. The "fill" coat fills about 50-75% of the weave. The third coat completes the filling except for the odd spot, seam, hollow etc. I then took straight epoxy with a plastic spreader and evened the hull bottom in the areas that needed it. Tomorrow I'll sand the bottom smooth and roll on a fourth and final coat of epoxy.
Four coats sounds ok. That's what I used.
You can thicken up the epoxy a little if you want, but don't make it's consistency too heavy or the coating too thick. The idea is to fill the weave. Assuming you put the cloth down over a reasonably fair hull, you should have some spot smoothing to do only, which doesn't require the whole boat be coated with thickened goo. Microballoons, phenolic or quartz spheres, etc. is all you need with enough silica to thicken it up so it will not sag.