: That's an interesting way to cover an SOF ... tell us how ya do it!

: Ken Blanton

Hi Ken,

I suppose I really should put together a photo blog of some sort on how I do this. Would be a great project in the winter (cept winter's over ).

Basically you cover the boat twice and have a joint at the gunwale, much like covering like with Tom Yost's method with Coverlite. The materials don't have enough stretch to cover both the hull and deck in one piece.

The dacron is heat shrinkable, I use a clothes iron to shrink it, like covering an airplane, same material, except I use uncertified dacron, much less money. Any of the aircraft supply houses carry it, I get mine from Aircraft Spruce, around $3 a yard. I staple it in place, though it can also be glued in place, look to the aircraft covering tech manuals for directions and materials.

Once the dacron is in place and shrunk, I paint on a layer of epoxy. I've been using West brand 205/207 and that works and remains flexible. The dacron needs to be sealed prior to adding the glass or you end up with a giant sponge that'll suck up amazing quantities of epoxy. Once that's set up, don't wait for long because you want a good bond, cover the surface with 4 ounce glass, the stuff I use is fairly tight weave. Works the same as covering wood. After that it's the same finishing process as a strip built kayak. The key though is to keep the laminate light, adding extra resin/cloth will tend to make the surface more rigid which will cause cracking as it flexes. The light dacron/fiberglass combination is just as flexible as any of the conventional SOF covering methods.

Try a test panel, it's pretty cheap

Bill H.