Fiberglassing and Boom Bends

NOTE: This should have been posted two weeks ago.

I've read several different techniques for obtaining a transparent fiberglass coating over wood and I decided to put a coat of epoxy on the panel first, sand that coat, then apply the fiberglass, and then apply more coats to fill in the weave. This picture is from a position directly above the final result.

I'd have to say it turned out quite nice. Other angles are shown below.

The only two blemishes were these.

One blemish was from something trapped under the fiberglass cloth. The other was from some nonuniformity in the weave of the cloth. I have since sanded both blemishes (after a couple of coats of epoxy to protect the cloth from sanding) and recoated those areas with fine results.

The board I received to use for the boom had a bit more "character" than I wanted.

I decided I probably needed to buy a replacement but I thought I would try to see if I could correct the warp. From the diagram below you can see that I made a straight cut along the length of the board. I then switched the position of the pieces and used epoxy to glue the pieces back together.

I used a straight edge and my router to true up both edges and the board was quite straight.

Unfortunately I also tried to make a scarf joint to correct a bend in the other direction and by the time I was done the board was 3" too short. After conferring with John Harris at CLC I replaced the original cypress board with a fir board.

Later!