I raised the canoe above the horses by screwing a length of 1 X 8 to the forms. I then lifted the canoe a couple of inches above the top of the horse and clamped it in place. This will provide room for the glass to hang free.
Then I rolled a coat of epoxy on the entire external surface and then used a wide foam brush to carefully smooth it. After the epoxy had cured I used the scraper to remove any irregularities in the surface because it it now time for the fiberglass. 70 feet of 38 inch fiberglass is a lot of fiberglass and it has to be cut into four equal lengths. Nancy helped me drape it back and forth over the canoe and then I carefully cut the top layer to length, folded it up and placed it in a plastic bag. I did the same thing with the next two layers and then the last layer was in place for epoxy. I first positioned the cloth so the threads were running in a straight line and then slid it around so that it just extended beyond the sheer of the side to be covered. There is a lot of overlap on the other side. This extra glass gets trimmed so that it extends about 2 inches beyond the seam where panels 1 and 2 meet. |
Make sure you give yourself enough time for the glassing. It took 4 hours for me to epoxy one side! It just takes time to saturate the glass and keep it smooth and aligned. Then use the squeegee to remove the excess epoxy and force the glass flat and smooth. As you can see, the white glass becomes crystal clear and that beautiful wood grain shows right through.