Good afternoon to all,

I am building a female mold that will beused to make a carbon fibre marathon canoe (18’6”). I have good skills working with fibreglass but this is my first experience in making a femalemold.

The mold is based on wooden slats lined with 1” foam and  lined once more with fibreglass. The fibreglass  is then finished with the usual body fillerand mold primer/hi-gloss coats to make it a glass finish. As you may realise,the front and back end of the molds are extremely streamlined and I find itimpossible to sand down to a glass finish.

The alternatives that I have come up withwould be to 1) cut the mold in half and work on each side separately thenreassemble to lay the carbon fibre cloth. The disadvantage might be that Iwould not end up with symmetrical sides. Option 2 would be to lay the carbon fibrein the mold as is but finish the exterior of the canoe’s ends to a glass finishafterwards. Finishing the outside to a glass finish after unmolding seemsdifficult to achieve. Any comment and recommendation would be welcome. 

Manythanks.

Z

Keep up the good work, you will come good in the end.

Do a bit then walk away and come back fresh.

I'm polishing three moulds and sanding two plugs at present, they are much smaller than your hull but quite tricky so I give them an hour then take a 10min rest and come back with fresh eyes, I want them perfect so am now down to 2000 grit paper before buffing.

will look trick when finished and you will feel 100% after doing it yourself.