by Larry C » Wed Jan 27, 2010 6:36 pm
I stopped using fiberglass tape for kayak building a long time ago. It is much easier to make your own. If you dont already have a fabric cutter and cutting pad, pick one up a Walmart. The cutter looks like a pizza cutter and the pad protects the blade as you cut.
Buy some 4 oz Fiberglass cloth, roll it out onto a table that is covered with something that wont catch the cloth. I use paper. Lay a straight edge on a diagonal accross the cloth. Put the pad under the cloth and cut on a 45* angle accross the cloth, moving the pad as you go. Repeat this process for thr strip width you want, usually 3" or so is good.
Lay the strips on wax paper and wet them out with epoxy resin. I don't use polyester on wood. You can pick up the wet strip and lay it on the project or pick up the sheet of wax paper and transfer the strip to the project, and peel off the waxpaper.
When you cut plain weave cloth on a bias, there will not be ANY strands coming off, and the strip will follow the sharpest curve with ease. The edge of fiberglass tape becomes thick and rough when cured that must be ground off if you want to hide it. Bias cut strips are perefectly level. Your strips wont be much longer than 30-40" so over lap each new strip about 1.5" or 2". Fill coats on 4 oz glass will bury this quickly.
There are some advanced methods that make the finishing even easier, but if your just painting it, I wont go into that now.
As with anything you haven't already tried, there is a learning curve. Practice on some scrap. If you do decide to use the tape, lay out the length you need and with a helper, stretch the length of tape. This helps smooth the edges abd save a lot of grinding/sanding, but tape will never follow curves like bias cut strips.
Larry C