: Pinking shears make a zig zag cut, and can stop fraying. (like a series of
: small bias cuts)

: There are also rotary cutters, I bought one of those this weekend to cut
: glass tapes out of cloth, it is supposed to be much much easier and
: precise. Haven't tried it yet though. There are also rotary cutters with
: pinking blades.

Pinking shears are very expensive scissors, and cutting fiberglass is hard on scissors. If you get a good pair of pinking shears expect that you will ruin them by cutting yards of fiberglass. It is an expensive way to deal with the problem. If you want a pinked edge, I'd strongly urge trying the wavy wheel cutter blade. It will probalby be less expensive.

But why bother with an expensive scissors, or with paying for an extra wheel cutting blade? Outline the edge you wish to cut with masking tape before cutting the fabric. Draw your cutting line in the middle of the tape and cut on that line. Your cloth will be edged with a thin strip of masking tape, which you can pull off at the last minute while wetting out the fabric, or which you can sand off later.

When I put on a double layer of glass in the "football" center on my canoe I laid it down first and used a few dabs of masking tape to hold it to the hull before covering it with a full sheet of fabric. I lifted each corner and pulled off the tape, then I coated both layers at once with epoxy. The smooth upper layer of glass cloth kept me from pulling out the edges from the underlying piece. This was a technique suggested in Gil Gilpatrick's book. In that regard it worked fine. My only complaint was that I got some tiny airbubbles trapped in the doubled cloth. No one ever noticed them but me.

PGJ
PGJ