Hi there, Ralph.

I know the feeling! My two cents' here is a tip courtesy of Paul Ford, a retired prof who gave a short lecture at the West Coast Sea Kayaking Symposium last September:

When laying out the fiberglas cloth it can be difficult to get it to lay flat to the wood surface, which in turn seems in my case to lead to lifting. So when you get the cloth generally spread out, go over it gently from the center to the edges with a long, soft broom. I use 1/2 of an old 24" floor broom head, a friend used to use a wallpapering brush, Mr. Ford uses I think a regular fox tail brush. Clean would probably be good, and you want something soft as opposed to a straw bristle broom.

You'll find the cloth lays down very flat, smooth, and conforms to the complex curves very nicely. Sometimes I use clamps to hold it in place at the edges, then remove them as I approach with the wet epoxy. When done coating with epoxy, I go back to any shiny places and squeegy up the excess epoxy there (and reuse it on a non-boat project!).

The final look of this first coat is something like wet canvas- a textured, matte look to it, but smooth. And, of course, transparent; unsaturated cloth remains white. Sometimes it seems individual threads aren't absorbing well, perhaps because the epoxy is thickening as time runs out. Assuming there is enough epoxy there, cautious use of a heat gun or hair dryer thins the epoxy so it can get into the thread.

Be gentle with the squeegy; you just want to remove excess not starve the cloth. I'm pretty new to this also, so I generally mix small batches, generally only 3 or 4 oz. at a time. Experienced builders can use much more without running out of time, but it doesn't seem to hurt to do small amounts at a time as long as you stick with it for each piece of cloth.