surfdabbler

Next came the first fibreglass. I’d decided by now that the construction was going to be balsa and fibreglass. I’m not going to try to build a complete fibreglass boat on my first go. I also think that surely balsa with glass on both sides will be lighter for a given strength than straight fibreglass. After all, real boats aren’t solid glass – they use some sort of light core with fibreglass inside and out. Anyhow, that’s what I’m doing.

I used Epoxy resin and ‘tissue’ cloth glass, which I’ve been told is around 20gsm (1/3 oz). The guy at the shop told me that tissue cloth was useless, and probably no different to using epoxy without any glass. However, I was actually surprised at how much strength the tissue cloth actually added, and 1.5mm balsa, with the tissue cloth, I think it’s strong enough for most of the hull. A few places will get interior reinforcement later.