glassing fillets questions

Builder's Forum
1

I put the fillets in the bow section of my Chesapeake and laid the glass tape over them last night.   I noticed that after everything cured I can still see most of the wires. I know there is plenty of epoxy in there to hold the boat together because I beveled the edges of the panels before wiring it together. I am not crazy about heating all those wires to take them out. Should I just go back and lay some more thickened epoxy over the fillets to hide the wires? 

I also noticed a few tiny air bubbles trapped under the glass.  I am pretty sure I put enough epoxy on it  because it was fully transparent and started to run in a couple of spots. This not a huge issue because this is a cargo compartment that has such a small hatch that nobody will ever see it,  but I would like to make sure this doesn't happen on the other parts of the boat people will see like the deck which I will finish natural.   Any ideas on how to get rid of these tiny air bubbles.

 

2

The fillets only go on the inside and are only visabil in the cockpit. For the outside you have three choices for the wire. 1) cut them and sand down, the tape over; 2) heat the wires & pull out, or 3) tack weld (spot glue with thickend epoxy)from the inside, let dry, and remove the wires. Then you can put regular tape on the outside of the joints to minimize epoxy coming thru, and finish the fillet & taping on the inside. I did #3.

Don't worry about how the fillets look where you can't see them. Don't worry about the air bubbles inside. You can try a hole & injecting epoxy but I don't think it worth it. Keep the fillets as small and neat as possible to save epoxy & weight. On the outside it is easier to smooth the tape, but don't use too much epoxy because you don't want to deal with the drips/runs anymore than needed.