Hey, folks. I glassed for the first time this past wekend, and have a few questions about things that happened.

The boat is Jay Babina's Outer Island, and I flipped it over to do the hull first, because I wanted my learning curve to be on a less visible spot than the deck would be. I'm glad I did, because I had some issues.

1. First mistake was that I was doing the boat in halves, using the keel as a divider. I was so intent on getting the cloth to lay down flat to the wood, that I didn't realize until it was too late that I was pulling too much cloth to one side of the boat. The result was that in spots, I fell anywhere from 1/4" to 3/4" inches short on the opposite side. My plan is to sand the frayed edges of the glass down smooth and build it back up when I do the exterior seam. Then, sand the whole thing until it looks acceptable, and hope that the strength will be acceptable as well. Is that a reasonable plan?

2. I only layed down one layer of 6 oz cloth. Due to the trouble I was having, I bailed out of extra cloth inside the football and the keel line. Now I'm having second thoughts about that "heat of the moment" decision. I've already done my fill coats.... is it too late to go back and lay down some extra cloth along the keel?

3. Everything looked like it was wetting out fine - no starvation and no huge puddles. Well, at least that's the way it started. But, now that the 4 fill coats are dry to the touch, there are still some spots that to the casual eye look fine, but if you get right down on the boat and hit the light at an angle, you can see some of the glass fibers. You have to be looking for it, though. If you are just standing there casually looking at the boat, it isn't noticable. So, the question here isn't so much with "looks" as it is with a proper glassing job. Is the strength going to be acceptable, or do I have a structural problem if it isn't entirely "clear"?

4. It's pretty rough and wavy looking at the moment. I didn't get the hang of the squeege until the last fill coat. And as the epoxy would start setting, I didn't get good "flow" so that it would smooth out as nice as I'd have liked. The result is a rough uneven surface. I'm assuming that it will look much beeter after I sand it smooth. I also have some drips that will need to be sanded out. My understanding is that that situation is pretty normal, right?

5. There are some spots where it probably wouldn't hurt to put one more skim coat on the boat, but it's getting hard to tell if it's the weave I'm filling, or just an uneven surface with all the epoxy. Since it's that questionable, I'm thinking that after sanding, 4 to 6 coats of varnish will fill any remaing weave that might actuall exist. Is that correct, and if so, is it acceptable?

Thanks for all the help! I'm sure the deck will go much smoother!

Rick