Svenson's Bulletin Board

patrik · Joined: 14 Dec 2006 Posts: 2 Location: Belgium

Hi guys,
The price of glascloth and epoxy is very high in Belgium, and I was wondering if you can build this boats without the expensiv epoxy. I think at the time these plans are published there was no epoxy or glascloth. Idea

Best regards,
Patrik.
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APB · Joined: 18 Mar 2006 Posts: 4

Of course these boats can be built without using fibreglass resins and cloths... but they come with a lot of advantages such as sealing the wood and protecting the boat from rot and preventing leaks. When i built my minimax i used polyester resin and fibreglass cloth cut in strips. I quickly found out that polyester resin dose not work good on boats. when i refinished it the next year the fibre glass and rein practically peeled of without a lot of effort. my minimax now has a auto body filler with strands of fibreglass in it (bondo-glass) its work very good and sticks well to wood (so far).

If you’re going to build a boat without the aid of epoxy than you should spend money on good caulking and glues... (like 3M 5200 - a caulking made for marine use, but it is expensive).

And though for some of these boats (and only some) where designed before fibreglass boats. but some of the first fibreglass boats came in around the late 50's or early 60's. I had a fibreglass boat with a 64 evenrude 40 on it and that was probably a packaged deal. and not to mention I have brochures for 60's outboards with them on fibreglass boats.

lumiecraft · Joined: 01 Mar 2006 Posts: 19

Use Poly Resin instead of Epoxy. Epoxy is expensive here as well. Poly is cheap and will work fine if you wish to use it. Just remember that Epoxy is better. If you use Epoxy you will need to always use Epoxy for repairs. If you use Poly Resin then you could use Epoxy if it needed repaired. Just remember that if you use Epoxy even for a patch that patched area will always need Epoxy from then on if it ever needed repaired again in that same spot. So, use Poly Resin and use Poly Resin for repairs. If you decide to not use either and decide to use paint you must keep up with the work required. If you scratch off any paint you must let it dry fully and repaint and let it dry before you put the boat back into the water. That's if the scratch went all the way to the wood.

Best bet: use Poly or Epoxy resin over fiberglass to protect the boat and then paint over that.
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