how prepped does the bottom need to be before glassing

Hi All,

I've got the  skid shoe off and in the garbage. All the ring nails are pulled out or clipped and back filled. I've epoxied/wood powdered all dings and sanded from bow to where the skid shoe ended. I was able to get that far using 80 grit.

My question is, Just how clean/sanded does the bottom have to be before glassing? From where the skid shoe ended to the transom is being a bear to clean up with 80 grit. So was the bow bottom but i got that done...with about 12 disks of the 80. Starting the last leg it seems that the paper just won't budge the 50 years of varnish.

Since i'm going to glass and graphite the whole boat bottom does the bottom have to be clean bare wood? Ug, can't take sanding much longer. Stripper to finish clean or can I rough sand and start my glassing?

thanks, M

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Comment by Mitchell Culbertson on August 10, 2018 at 9:09am

Thanks for the replies Guys. The glassing project is done. I kept working on cleaning up the bottom until I reached home, the true bottom. I had Cy of Ray's in my corner and he mentored me through until the end and even after. Thank you Cy!

I submitted to stripper and a putty knife to break through the many years of varnish and then back to 80grit on the orbital. Ug on the stripper. Next time I will use coarser grit. Thanks Phillip and Guy, its never to late to chime in. There is always a next time.

Next time I'll post my questions on the forum link and not the blog. I'm sure eyes are more quickly drawn to that link instead of the story/blog link.

I did take photos of the project and if I can figure out how to post them, I will. 

Comment by Phillip Westendorf on August 9, 2018 at 1:19pm

Belt Sander, 36, 40 or 60 grit It'll do it!

Comment by Guy Fredrickson on August 6, 2018 at 7:40pm

M,

You are probably done by now, but here is my opinion. The best, of course, is to keep going until you get to clean bare plywood. And if that plywood is rotted, then it should be replaced. The epoxy is made to bond to wood. It will probably bond well to varnish, but then the integrity is only as good as the bond between the old wood and the old varnish you just covered with new epoxy. If you do take it down to bare plywood, don't over-sand and go through the laminate of the plywood.

Guy

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