Glassing Stabilizer, Glueing Seat

Things are going slower than expected, mainly due to family matters and other commitments.

A week ago I was about to update the blog with the relatively minor progress of rounding the edges of the stabilizers and preparation for glassing the outsides. The weight of the two stabilizers are within 1/8 ounce of each other (3 pounds, 13 and 3/8 oz for one and 3 pounds, 13 and 1/2 oz for the other).



To be completely honest I have been procrastinating about putting the seat together. I think I have come up with a workable layup schedule for it that won't require too much in the way of clamp coordination, be fairly pretty and still be strong enough to handle the loads. It will take maybe two days to do it, with the proper partial cure times for the resin, so that the wood will be properly sealed, glassed and bonded and filleted together.

Anyway, I spent an hour one day taking the 38 inch 3.8 oz. cloth and cutting it into 17 inch wide pieces, leaving a 4 inch wide tape that could be used for seams somewhere. The width should be enough to have an inch of fabric drape beyond the sides of the stabilizers when they are glassed. The lengths were enough to extend a couple of inches beyond the ends.

This morning I got out of bed, got dressed, and headed to the garage to start the process. After double checking that the seat back and two side pieces would fit reasonably flush, and setting the stages for the two stabilizers, I mixed the first batch of resin.

Resin was first applied to the back of the seat panel and the insides of the side panels. It was next applied to one side each of the two stabilizers. This left only a little resin in the bottom of the cup, which would cure more slowly than if the resin had not been dribbled onto the stabilizers.


Next, I squeegied the resin over the seat back and side panels, making sure that the edges of the side panels that would glue to the seat back were fully saturated. I then mounted the side panels onto the seat back panel, using plastic wrapped paint cans and plastic wrapped steel blocks for weights to flatten the seat back and to provide vertical alignment for the side panels.

Returning to the stabilizers I squeegied the resin over the side of one stabilizer, then did the same for one side of the stabilizer before running out of resin. Time for another resin batch!

After mixing the second batch I flipped the stabilizers onto their sides and squeegied the remaining sides and tops with resin, trying to keep them from dripping too much.

I took the first piece of pre-cut glass and tried draping it on the stabilizer by myself. This was a bad move, as not only did I not get it centered from side to side but I didn't get it centered from end to end!

After lifting it off and trying several more times I finally managed to get it more or less centered, and spread from end to end, completely gooping my latex gloves in the process.

All was not lost, however. It turned out that the gloves worked quite well in smoothing out the wrinkles, bubbles and folds, working the resin into the fibers and making it lay nicely over the curved edges.

One down, one to go!


I finished applying resin to the second stabilizer, and called to my son to assist me with draping the cloth on it.

After a couple of false applications we managed to get it pretty well centered. I used the squeegie a little, but went back to using the gloves to work the cloth into the resin and saturate the fibers. By this time, however, the resin was starting to thicken and it was taking a bit more work to get the desired results.

The remaining resin in the cup was getting quite thick and couldn't be used, either. Rats!

As it turned out, there were several small puddles on the plastic below the stabilizer where excess resin dripped. This stuff was still quite liquid, and there was just enough to apply to the remaining dry sections of cloth with my glove-covered fingertips. Yay!

I double checked both stabilizers and made sure that there were no obvious bubbles, wrinkles or dry spots. The ends were also checked, but the cloth seemed to be behaving there with no extra clamping needed.

The remaining resin in the cup was now a thick, gooey blob. This was scooped out by hand and spread on the side of the foam seat bulkhead to glue the shim to it.

Later today after things have set it will be time to trim the excess cloth on the stabilizers and apply cloth to the bottoms, and to fillet and glass the seat back.