hey Ridge, today i layed in the modeling clay and that was a job in itself, then i sprayed in a wax release. Tomorrow i will stop and pick up a Preval sprayer to shoot the PVA then i hope to have enough time to gelcoat. so yes i am moving along. I have one question though. strick mentioned that he does one layer of fiberglass tape over the modeling clay, do you think i can cut strips from my 3/4 mat or do i have to use the tape. thanks john

I think his tape is just mat tape. You can definitely cut the mat into strips for that. Any woven fabric there and you would be able to see the weave in the reflection of the gelcoat (print through). The roller type bubble poppers will have to be used lightly on the clay like you said. Have a brush ready to do some light dabbing. Oh and :pic:, Please.

once again
 

well i put a coat of unwaxed gelcoat on the mold today then i ran 2 inch strips of fiberglass tape and resin around the entire inside corner of mold over the molding clay . next i layed in one layer of 1 1/2 oz mat with resin ,had to stop thier because i had work to do that actually pays. i really wanted to put on another layer of glass just so i wouldn't have to sand between coats. It was hard to do but not as hard as i thought it might be. i will say i am so glad i bought the rollers to roll out the resin, that would have been a disaster, i took pics of the whole thing so far but left the camera at work or i would have tried to post them here tonight, i'll try and post them tomorrow night beacause as we all know:thre: lol

With the help of Ridge and after many pm's Here are some pics of the build of my new 36x36 gas tank hatch. one is of the mold built from MDF. then youl see the modeling clay used to soften the corners and radius's. then layup using 2 layers of mat Tomorrow iwill be adding 5x5 pieces of plywood core with a mix of cabosil and resin and more mat . also spray wax and PVA was used thanks to the Preval sprayer, the mold was then gelcoated prior to layup. you can see the old starboard hatch in the background.
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Nice work. Your filleting work looks clean. Radius looks big, 1/4"? I am anxious to see how the gelcoat is gonna turn out. That is the one step I never tried. :clap:

Ridge, actually i made the radius even tighter after the picture was taken, it looked to be a bit to wide . i ran out of resin and got bored so i popped one of the side pieces of the mold off, it came rite off i couldnt believe it

So I am very intrigued about making molds,and this gives me motivation to try making a couple hatches. So let me try to understand, you build a jig or mold then round off inside corners with molding clay then spray with a release wax. You then roll out gel coat and then make your glass layup? Not trying to hijack thread please pm with details.

hatch
 

So i finished the build of my Hatch today. now here i am like a kid at christmas time , cant wait to get this thing out of the mold so i'm now working with the mold removal wedge and nothing and i mean nothing is happening at all. After about an hour i get the Hatch out , only problem is 90 percent of the MDF is still conected to it and i thought i used enough mold release but that spray wax the guy sold me must not have worked. Now here i am taking the MDF down layer by layer 1/32 nd of an inch at a time with my Dewalt power planer. Just wanted to shoot my self. so after three hours of the Planer the palm sander and 4 different wood chisels i got it down to the gelcoat but not without a little bit of damage. i did expect that it would need some work but not the 2 gouges i put in it! The point of the story is hand rub the wax into the mold. other than that the hatch came out fantastic could not be more pleased

Congratulations
 

Post up a picture of that bad boy. Good talking with you too BTW.

you can use hair spray as a release agent