PocketShip.net

Well, I picked up my materials from CLC on Wednesday and spent 2 days getting everything organized in the garage to some degree. I just started the first steps this evening by working on the centerboard trunk. My intent is to just do one of the pieces with peel ply and the other with the usual multiple layers of epoxy and see what works best for me. Have any of you worked with peel ply and have suggestions for large surface areas like these? Any recommendations greatly appreciated.
Mike

Hi Mike and welcome aboard,

John Harris has a great video on the CLC site about using peel-ply. Watch it several times. I also experimented on a couple scraps of plywood, sacrificing small sections of peel-ply and FG fabric to practice. My issues related to insufficient epoxy application over the peel-ply resulting in streaks of "starved" fabric.

Good luck. Enjoy the process - you'll have a blast. And keep us posted.

All the best,
Mark

Thanks Mark,
The first side with peel ply worked well. I had a couple small spots at 2 corners that did not fill the fiberglass enough so did a touchup today. There will be some sanding to do but shouldn't be bad. I went ahead and glassed the other piece for the centerboard case and tried more peel ply with a little more epoxy than the first attempt.
I used peel ply in the past on small areas while building an engine cowl for my airplane (a past life) some years ago but never tried it on wood and never on such a large surface. It takes much more attention to detail with the large area for me as there are so many places where pucker and air needs to be worked out.
Mike