Order some 1.5 OZ cloth

[mosportsmen]

Not really a question just advice to all boat builders.

I used 1.5 OZ cloth on my last build, I was going for making the boat as light as possible for racing. I did use 6 oz cloth to tape all seems in and out but interior and exterior large surfaces were all 1.5 oz.

I just completed my first ultra marathon paddling race (95 miles) finish time 21 hours 12 minutes. The second and third leg of the race was at night, the river was low we had to drag the boat through sand and gravel many times and the boat held up pretty well (30% did not finish) I got a couple deep gouges that probably went through the glass into the wood but just barely. I can fix that.

I would not recommend using this light glass on a recreational boat bottom you want around a long time with little maintenance but for my purpose the 1.5 oz worked great.

I would recommend it for boat interiors for everyone, great for that keeps the wood sealed without check cracks you get with epoxy alone. It is also great stuff for small repairs you don't need or want to add another patch of 6 oz cloth over the 6 oz cloth you already have.

I am just sayin'

 

[tx river rat]

I have to respectfully disagree with putting light weight glass inside, the outside is for wear the inside is the strength against a blow.
Ron

 

[mosportsmen]

I am glad you do. Let's throw down the gloves and go at it.....

I feel you are right in saying the bottom is for wear and I understand the inside would help to hold things together against a blow. Wouldn't most of that quality of strength be served with the thin glass? Just the act of tying that surface together with anything would be pretty strong? Beats the heck out of just painting with epoxy anyway.

I am just saying the boat is holding up pretty well so far. The weight savings was pretty significant.

 

[Kayak Jack]

I can see advantages in both directions (1.5 oz or 6 oz glass inside). A workable compromise for many boats would be 1.5 oz all over inside, with a second layer of it on just the lower portions, or flatter parts of a bottom.

A situation where a boat bottom is really at risk is being impaled on the point of a sharp object (rock, re-rod in concrete, etc.) IA sharp point concentrates part of a boat's weight into a very small area, often bending the wood inward. Without some secondary skin - such as fiberglass and epoxy - plywood or strippers are likely to split and/or splinter. A blow to the side is much more likely to hit and rebound. A boat bottom running up onto a rock and hanging is a very bad situation, often ending in a capsize and material damage to the hull.

Recognizing that there are different experience bases and opinions, when we disagree or see other points of view, let's do it amicably.

 

[mosportsmen]

let's do it amicably?

I thought we were. I welcome a little debate on this subject. When I was first considering using it I couldn't find anyone that had tried it. No info on any forums anyway. So I thought I would open up a little discourse here.

Tom

 

[Kayak Jack]

We are, Tom. I was suggesting that we continue. Open discussion will help bring out various ideas and options.

 

[oldsparkey]

...The For What's It Worth ...Dept.

I have used the 1 .5 oz cloth on the inside of some of my boats and so far they have not fallen apart. :wink:
I was going to only epoxy saturate the inside of the boats but then thought about the wear and tear on the wood from getting in and out of them. That is what made me use the 1.5 oz glass on the inside. It was a buffer to adsorb the wear in place of the wood and epoxy saturation taking the abuse.
On most of them the outside was covered with 3.25 tight woven glass , one boat had 6 oz glass on the outside , the normal stuff , not tight woven.

The trick is to not run up on things in the water and to avoid them , when possible. Fortunately down here when ( or if ) we run up on something it is usually a log or a stump and is covered with algae or some other slick material which lets you slide off of it. We tend to miss the ones sticking out of the water and the spring fed rivers you can see them under the water so you can miss them.

 

[tx river rat]

Mick myself and a couple more folks I paddle with have had the bad luck of raming something with our wood yaks that busted the wood we hit it so hard. in all four cases the outside glass folded , it isnt very strong in compression crushed the wood ,the inside 6 ounce glass held because it was being stretched and all four of us paddled in , now if I had 1.5 glass on the inside
it would have ripped a hole all the way through the hull. mine was at water line on the side. I think Micks was on the bottom.
You really dont save that many lbs, if you saved 10 lbs on weight that is 1 1/4 gallons of water .You dont even know when you put that in a boat.
Chuck has a reason for his weight savings , but I remember on the Brazos he heard a pop he didnt like. He can tell you where I paddle it might be gravel , sand ,concrete steel, and thats our normal paddling inviroment. We jump logs ,drag accross gravel ,up boat ramps. Mine get hammered.
We even load our boats with the gear still in them sometimes :lol: Isnt that right Chuck.
Maybe here is a good example ,in my shop I have a 3000 electric hoist ,it has a 3/8 cable . I take a piece of the cable and I cant push 2 lbs across the floor without it bending but I can pick up 3000 lbs with it , You need the strongest element of your composite boat where it has to strech,

Putting 6 ounce tape on the seams with 1.5 ounce cloth didnt save you much weight.
Ron

 

[oldsparkey]

Chuck has a reason for his weight savings , but I remember on the Brazos he heard a pop he didnt like. He can tell you where I paddle it might be gravel , sand ,concrete steel, and thats our normal paddling inviroment. We jump logs ,drag accross gravel ,up boat ramps. Mine get hammered.
We even load our boats with the gear still in them sometimes :lol: Isnt that right Chuck.

Ron

Ron is not joking , he does load down his boat and even paddles it in places that I would not even think of paddling. That just makes me think that Texans do what they have to do or that they are just a wild and krazy bunch of guy's.
The trip on the Brazos with him and Darrell along with Bear was an eye opener for me. That river is full of rocks , gravel , boulders and shallow rapids , not one sand bar in the whole dang thing.
Not even thinking about the obstacle course at the landing area of the torn down bridge and the submerged remains of another one up stream to keep a paddler on his toes.

Myself being more layed back and liking to paddle the slow moving streams , the clear ( spring ) water rivers and even the slow backwater ( Black-water ) swamps where the greatest danger is a submerged log or stump I can get by with the lighter glass. Even our Sand bars are a blessing when paddling and a lot of fun to slide over.

Ron...That one rapid caused that Pop and I still can't find any damage to the canoe. I'm thinking it might of been the epoxy where I epoxied the seat supports to the sides of the canoe , that has happen to my other canoe when in rapids. Not enough to let the bond come loose but just enough to let the canoe complain about the extra stress to the junction of the seat brace and the side of the boat , probably caused by extra flexing.

Just for a disclaimer......
I am always trying to get my gear weight down and right now I have it to one pack that can be back packed if not canoeing. Only difference between back packing and canoeing is that canoeing I would have a folding chair and more food with me. All of this is due to the restrictions on the weight I can carry as determined by my Cardiologists.That is one reason why we are here .

They told me nothing over 45 pounds in 93 and that I could not use my heavy ( 80 pound) fiberglass canoe anymore because of it's weight. Not being able to afford a Kevlar canoe the only choice was to make my own light weight boat. I found a light weight boat ( 17 1/2 foot kayak at 39 pounds , encased in 6 oz glass ) to make. After it was made this web site was created to help folks make and enjoy wood boats.

 

[tx river rat]

The longer I am around these boats the more I realize how location sensitive they are .We build for the water we paddle and our own needs and desires.
I think that is one reason we get so many different ideals about what we each think is the perfect boat.
Chucks boats probably wouldnt stand up to my kind of paddling on a day to day usage , and my boats would be over built for his location.
Ron

 

[mosportsmen]

Here in Missouri it is a different world in the north where I live and in the south where I like to visit. The rocky fast flowing Ozark streams of the south call for some pretty serious protection. If I spent a lot of time on them with a wood boat I would want a lot of bottom abrasion protection at least 6oz over the whole bottom and maybe three layers of it on the seams.

I live in the north the streams are gumbo mud and I don't paddle them so I paddle lakes up here. The race I am running on the Missouri is big deep water with few things to run into, the most abuse will be concrete boat ramps. When the river buoy hit me on the side and punched a hole in the side what hit me was kinda like a hammer head, a small point with quite a bit of force. It would take a lot of glass over luan to prevent a hammer head going through it.

I think I did save quite a bit of weight with the 1.5 oz because I would have used 6 oz tape on the seams under a full sheet of 6 oz cloth anyway. The 1.5 oz seems to take fewer coats of epoxy to make it smooth and fill the weave also.

 

[oldsparkey]

Chucks boats probably wouldnt stand up to my kind of paddling on a day to day usage , and my boats would be over built for his location.
Ron

1/8th inch wood with 3.25 tight woven glass on the outside and 1.5 glass on the inside......Nope , not a full time Brazos River boat but sure is a boat for the Florida or Georgia waters.
As everyone says ... Location , Location , Location is the dealing factor on our boats.

 

[tx river rat]

I had to go see the doc today and while I was waiting I got to thinking about this post. Sometimes you do things that work for you and you dont even realize why until you really get to digging.
I like speed and an eficent hull. I realized today that in the 4 panel boat we are discussing
There is another reason for the 6 ounce glass on the inside. When you get in your boat you displace water with the hull,now it keeps trying to get back in by putting upward force on the hull bottom and inward force on the outside of the hull.This is really stressing the inside cloth and the heavier cloth , and more epoxy gives you a hull with less flex. Racing hulls are built from stiff materials for a reason , the smoother the water flows over the hull the faster it is , waves dips and humps are no what they want , the stiffer bottom of heavier glass may be faster and easier to paddle than a lighter boat with some flex in it.
Taping seams and the design of a 4 panel boat. to me running tape over cloth is a waste of epoxy , wait a minute let me explain. :lol: The seams on your modified t-v are the strongest stiffest places on your hull, you have pieces coming together at an angle that is a stiffener then you have a fillet inside and out those are both stiffeners. Take a hull that has been glued up filets run ,push on the seams , very little give if any now do the same in the middle of the panel ,you have give there . the cloth and glass will stiffen it. That my reason for saying putting on tape is a waste of epoxy ,you are bracing the strongest part of the hull and putting light cloth on the weakest part.
In over a thousand miles I have had very little damage or wear to my seams ,bow stern and flat areas where you sit have substained the major wear on my boat.
Now this is just my thoughts and they are free , so take them at what they are worth :lol: :lol: :lol:
Ron
No criticizer to anyone ment by this post just some ideals to kick around

 

[john the pom]

The answer is: yer both right, and yer both wrong. You just won't know it until you hit that whatever it is that's just made a hole in your boat. Years ago a piece of one inch round bar about six foot long slid from where some pratt had left it and hit me on the head. (I often use this as an excuse for whatever I need an excuse for I hadn't known it was there. Just like we don't know what's gonna hit us from under the water. Blood everywhere. Before he sikaflexed - honest that's what he used- my scalp back together all the doc wanted to know was what diameter was the round bar? Not how heavy, not how far it fell and nothing else. You should be very careful of the diameter of your wife's rolling pin for example. You can have a hammer bounce back at you off've a springy surface and you can tap a rigid one ever so lightly and it will crack. If you drop an egg on the floor your wife will probly yell at you. If you drop a boiled egg thats peeled wash it off quickly and put it in your wife's eggcrup. Soft versus hard, Brittle versus bendy. I s'pose yer both right in trying to prepare for the most likely hazard in a given area. What proves strong and sturdy in one collision could be the very reason it fails in the next. Who woulda thought the Titanic coulda been sunk by a bit of ice? Relatively speaking it was a glancing blow. Why didn't it just redirect the boat or iceberg? Cos the faults in the steel were brittle particularly at the temperature it was at the time. You will NEVER catch me paddling around the local icebergs. In the Coral Sea that is.
Cheers John.

 

[tx river rat]

Again John it is a location sensitive boat .
I have a habit of building anything by percentages and the most effincent use of materials to achieve my goals. I guess what I am saying is I play the odds ( % ) trying to balance strength , speed weight and toughness. I do that with a background in structural design and building, weak and strong points of the builds I have done ,seeing fractures and wear on race boats and other boats I am around.
You bring up a good point about the Titanic, it sank but there has been eskimo paddling around for century in whale bone and seal skin kayaks. That proves location sensitive about as well as you can.
The reason I posted what I did was just to have folks kick it around and have a little information about one guys thinking on a boat and the stress that is paddled in a harsh environmental ,The ole Brazos river.
I have learn from Chuck ,Mick , Mosportsman ,Jack and Matt and a ton of others on here,didnt always agree but most of the time learned something from every conversation.
I take my Hat of to Mo he completed a race that most folks just dream of running in a boat he built and did all the customizing on ,his boat got him there .So he had the right boat for his location.
My above post was on my thinking on a Brazos river boat ,and I am not saying this is the boat for every where ,just one model of many, you cant build a bad boat as long as it floats and makes you happy.
Ron

 

[oldsparkey]

As it has been said before , There isn't a one , general , all purpose boat to do everything. They are like tools , you have to match them to where and what they are going to be used for in order to have the best rewards. That even includes the building of the boats.
Grant you there are a lot more choices in the building of them. It still is determined ( to a degree) as to where they will be primarily used and especially what the builder has decided on.

 

[mosportsmen]

Oh, BTW just thought of another good use for 1.5 cloth. Paddle faces. Now there is an application where you want tough.

TX river rat? You do not tape your seems? Never thought of that. I guess that is because most plans and instructions I have read say to tape the seems then put on cloth. But I am mostly book learned unlike you. I guess you wouldn't need the tape on seems if you take care until you get them tied together with cloth. I have always thought of the seems as wear points though. I do know when I dropped one end of this boat off the saw horse before I got tape on the seem it split like a melon. Probably would not have if it were clothed or taped.

 

[tx river rat]

Mo
Most plans I have read call for a normal layup of 6 ounce glass inside and out covered with epoxy,
The light version is to tape the seams and then just coat with epoxy or paint no full glass coverage.
I am no guru on boats and I am still learning every build ,I do have structural background that gives me a little different look at things ,plus I just watch the wear point on the boats I paddle and the boats I paddle around..After paddling the race look at the wear points on the hull ,it will tell you where you need the most strength and wear guards.
Like I said this is just my way not necessarily the right way. And please dont take my comments as trying to push an ideal down someones throat ,just my opions.
Like you said the light glass wets out beautifully.
Ron

 

[Kayak Jack]

Regardless of weight, I had poor experience with a tight weave glass. Whereas a loose weave (normal, I think) will readily squiggle around to fit contours both convex and concave, a tight weave doesn't like to do that as much. I had the inside of a boat all wetted and laid, went to have a cuppa coffee, and on return found the tight weave had rebelled! I had wavy wrinkles all over the inside of the boat where the tight weave glass was trying to revert to a shape that it liked better than the shape of my boat. Stuff seems to have a memory.

I think that if a builder cut the tight weave into strips of, say, 12"-18" width, it might fare a lot better. I hadn't done that, and used a "boat width" sheet as I always had. Bad mistake, in retrospect. So, no matter the weight, I'll use a loose weave glass.

 

[tx river rat]

Here is a page from Jems website that explains the different options of building with tape and cloth.
http://www.jemwatercraft.com/StudyPlans/Laker13BOM.pdf
Ron