This content is copyrighted, and cannot be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author. There is a pervasive myth in the boating world that early fiberglass boats were somehow better built than their modern counterparts.
A myth that early boats are somehow impervious to the problems that have plagued the world of fiberglass construction in the decades following. A myth that we want so desperately to believe that we ignore reality. Yet this is the truth about most older boats. Still, because we didn't actually die, we convince ourselves that they're built like tanks when they're actually built like shower stalls. But the nice thing about fiberglass is, no matter how far gone, no matter how rotted parts of the boat are, no matter how underbuilt it may be, it can always be repaired and it can always be improved.
This section is about the common problems associated with older boats and how to affect those improvements. Understanding Fiberglass Boat Construction. The first step in restoring a fiberglass boat is understanding how a fiberglass boat is built. In terms of classic fiberglass boats, this means understanding how they were built fifty or sixty years ago. To a large degree, not much has changed. Once a boat has been designed, it moves from the pages of the naval architect to the production facility.
The first step in a production line boat is the building of a plug. A plug, quite simply, is a sculpture of a boat. It is the shape from which all subsequent molds are built. It can be a solid form or it can be an actual prototype. It can be a wholly new design, or it can be a preexisting boat that has been modified. Regardless of how the plug came into existence, it must be perfect. Since all future boats will be exact replicas of the plug, great care is taken to make sure the lines are fair, the finish is perfectly smooth, and the dimensions are accurate.
In today's world of fiberglass boat production, this is done with state of the art drafting programs and cut with million dollar milling machines to within 0. Fifty years ago, this was done by a guy named Rusty with a sanding block and a dust mask. To look at the comparisons between the fine sloping, gently curving lines of a classic fiberglass boat, complete with tail fins, headlights, and any number of other unique qualities culled from the imagination of builder, and today's cookie cutter, almost indistinguishable, factory boats is to tacitly acknowledge the art of craftsmanship that is so glaringly absent in today's assembly line world.
Once the plug has been perfectly faired and polished, it is then waxed and treated with a mold-release agent. Gelcoat, which is simply heavily pigmented polyester resin, is then sprayed over the plug.
The mold is then left to cure for sometime, usually about a week, before separating it from the plug. Once the mold has been separated from the plug, the mold itself must be polished and any defects or tooling marks left over from the separation must be repaired.
The mold is then waxed and treated with release agents and the boat building can finally begin. The building of the boat is similar to the building of the mold, but it's built from the outside-in. First, pigmented gelcoat, this is the color you see when you look at a boat, is sprayed inside the mold. The gelcoat is air inhibited. This means, when it's exposed to air, it won't fully cure. This is done to assist the boat builder.
The side touching the mold � the future outside of the boat � cures, while the side exposed to the air remains tacky. This is done so the builder can lay up the fiberglass directly into the partially cured gelcoat. Layer after layer of wetted out fiberglass is added until the desired thickness is achieved.
It is then popped out of the mold and the boat moves on to the next stage of the building process. Fifty years ago, this was done by hand. Sheets of fiberglass cloth, woven roving, and mat were cut to shape, wetted out with a brush or squeegee, and laid into the mold, one by one.
This is known as hand-laid construction and it will be the default technique for the remainder of this book. Other methods of fiberglass construction, such as resin impregnation and vacuum bagging, will be discussed, but, for the avergage person, these methods are cost prohibitive. As you can see, building a boat in this manner is like making a photocopy of a photocopy; fine details are sometimes lost, repairs are sometimes compounded, and the overall finished product can pay the price.
And that is just for the first boat built from the mold. Over time, the mold will get used again and again until either the production ends or the mold is retired.
If the mold is retired, a new mold must be made from the initial plug. As you can imagine, the plug will begin to show signs of wear and tear with each successive mold.
This must also be repaired prior to the new mold being laid up. Now you have a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy. This cycle continues on until the end of the production run. For this reason, no two boats, even from the same mold, are exactly alike. I think this is part of what appeals to me. The challenge in classic boat restoration is in getting it as close to the original plug, the original vision of the designer, as possible.
Perfection is unattainable. That line between perfect and imperfect is where art lives. It's where craftsmanship lives. Done well, it's something worth staring at for hours at a time. Any boat more complicated than a canoe will require more than one mold. The hull and the deck will almost certainly be from two different molds. If there are more complex areas, additional molds may be required. Seats, splashwells, floorpans, stringers, and transoms may all have there own molds.
In the end, they must all be tied together seamlessly for the finished boat to emerge. The name says it all with fiberglass. It is, at the most basic level, glass fibers that are saturated in resin. Like rebar in concrete, when the resin cures, the glass fibers add tremendous strength to the mixture. The concept of reinforcing a hardened structure with fibrous strands dates back 3, to Egypt where ancient clay shards reveal the use of glass fibers to increase the strength of the pottery.
Although the strands were crude and coarse by today's standards, the process for making strands of glass by hand would be refined for the next few thousand years.
Fibrous glass was used by many different cultures across the world in the next few millenia, but because of the difficult and labor intensive method of production, its use was limited to decorative purposes.
It's use as a reinforcement wouldn't be rediscovered until the nineteenth century. The world of glass fiber production leapt with both feet forward into the industrial age in , when a Frenchman named Dubus-Bonnel was issued a patent for using a loom to weave molten glass.
The method for producing fiberglass that we still use today happened, like most technological advances, by accident in A researcher for Corning Glass named Dale Kleist was trying to fuse together two glass blocks when an errant stream of compressed air hit the molten glass. The result was the same hair-thin strands found in modern fiberglass. Over the next few years, fiberglass would evolve into the product we know today. In , Corning Glass and Owens-Illinois would merge to become Owens-Corning and lead the world in the production of fiberglass and fiberglass products.
Initially, Owens Corning used fiberglass to make airplane parts for the war effort, but it was one of their own, a man named Ray Greene, who began experimenting with composite boat construction. His first composite boat was in and he built the first modern fiberglass boat in After the war and for the next ten years, fiberglass came into wide acceptance, quickly usurping wood as the preferred material for boat construction.
In older boats, the fiberglass and resin cocktail was limited to three different weaves of fiberglass and one kind of resin. Boat builders would alternate between weaves for each layer and wet it out with a brush dipped in a jug of resin. It was a simple formula with no real options for deviation.
They would keep adding layers of glass and more resin until the piece has reached the desired thickness. Though it should be noted that Pearson Boats experimented, unsuccessfully, as early as with a form of vacuum bagging. Today our options are an embarrassment of riches and, at times, overwhelming. While the basic concept of fiberglass hasn't changed for the last sixty years, the choices of resins, glass, composites, and ancillary supplies have exploded in recent years.
Before getting into the repair part of this section, it's important to understand what these options are and how they're used. Fiberglass and Composite Materials. As mentioned above, classic fiberglass boats used only three different weaves in their construction. Today there are more options available. Whether you choose to stick to traditional construction methods to keep your boat as authentic as possible or whether you choose to take advantage of the many improvements to the science and understanding of composite fabrics is entirely up to you.
Fiberglass cloth Fiberglass Boat Building Process Methods has the highest strength to weight ratio of all glass fiber fabrics. As far a glass goes, cloth is the strongest as compared to weight. Cloth is the strongest compared to weight, but that doesn't mean that it's the strongest layer of fiberglass you can lay into a boat. No, that title goes to woven roving which is also considerbly heavier. Yet, for some reason, probably because of the diminutive nature of the fabric, it is almost entirely used improperly.
Fiberglass cloth excels as the stuctural core of a thin, yet strong laminated panel. Alternating between cloth and mat, this fabric will end up as a strong and light weight boat.
Cloth, being a much lighter and drapier fabric, conforms to odd shapes much better than roving. One of the most common mistakes made, by both the boat builders of years past and the Do-It-Yourselfer of today, is wetting out fiberglass cloth, slapping onto a piece of wood, and believing this will prevent moisture from penetrating the surface. This is about as effective as an umbrella made out of gauze.
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