Hi all.

My corsair is nearing the time to cover (I'm running out of excuses). I plan to glass with Minwax P/U (Tom P's method). There are several hatches on the plane and the question I have is when I glass over the open hatch/gear door holes (hatches removed during application), should I:
1. Let the glass harden after the first (or subsequent?) p/u application and then trim the f/g flush to the opening, or
2. Trim the glass around the hole before the p/u is applied and try to 'wrap' the f/g around and under the edges of the opening.

With option 2, the hatches would have to be trimmed to compensate for the 'wrap', of course.

My concern is strength around the opening. It would seem like #2 would be stronger but, not having glassed before, I don't want to get into an impossible situation of trying to wrap the glass around and under the sheeting hole edges.

Thank you for the help!!!

-Kurt

In my opinion you should glass over the openings and then trim them. Glass cloth is not very forgiving and is hard to get good straight cuts so it is nearly impossible to cut accurate holes out of it. If your hatches have a frame that the hatch cover is supposed to get screwed to, I would use masking tape (blue) and mask off the frame. This will keep the polycrylic from dripping and bonding to the hatch frames.