Foil glassing preperations

With todays warmer Cape Town weather being back to normal,the Resolution 816 epoxy has cured to the stage where a Stanley Knife with a new blade (usa) would trim the excess off today,if left untill tommorrow,I would be using a mini grinder and a thin cutting disc,its by far the best to trim with a knife while you can.

The three layers of biaxial glass cloth are now applied to the foil,note the staggered layers,this was a development of the early foils to give increased strength in the area of the lower rudder pintal.
Left click to view in a larger size.


I have never worked out how many stages there are in making laminated rudder and keel foils,a great many for sure,we are now at the pre glassing stage.The glass cloth is special woven biaxial,it has a bias around 45 degrees,this makes it soft and quite pliable,its nice to go around shapes.

All that cloth will be applied with our thin laminating epoxy which will saturate and wet out the various layers (three)this will take a few days due to the curing time the epoxy needs.We stock epoxy and various glass cloths and tapes should you need any.

Left click the picture to see in a larger size.