At one point I was getting ready to glass a normal sized fun board and had 27" 4oz glass… The board was 22" wide – not thinking about it, I taped where I thought the cutlap should go and when I rolled out the glass, I realized that I was ever so slightly short… That day, I just ran another line of tape to widen the whole thing and was able to glass it.
Fast forward to this evening. I have 30" 4oz S-Glass and a 24" wide board… Hmm.
start little trick
I decided to take a piece of string 29" wide and see how it fit under the board and taped the very middle on each side and leveled it out so I got my maximum cut-lap depth. Then I took the string out and left the tape there as a guide… I also put some tape markers up and down from there to give a little better guide. Then ran the tape off and covered the deck for the bottom lamination. Made it perfectly symetrical.
Unfortunately, I kinda ran out of time tonite to actually glass – maybe tomorrow.
But instead of string why not go to the dollar store and buy one of those flexible fabric dress makers tape measures and.
1. Find the widest point on your blank.
2. Stick the tape measure down to the stringer or boards centerline at the 15" mark and smoothly pull the tape measure across the deck or bottom and around the rails then mark where the end of the tape measure stops… Then pull the tape measure over the deck in the other direction and around the opposite rail until you get to the 30" mark and identify that…If you want to go 29 - 29 1/2" wide as you stated just relocate your stringer centerline location to reflect the amout of lap you’re looking for… For quicker and more accurate measuring, go metric, it’s easier…
3. Lay down your lap masking tape down parallel to the rail outline and you’re ready to glass… Oh yeah. Stick 2 layers of (lap edge) masking tape directly on top of each other, it makes cutting or even sanding the edge of the lap line way easier…
If I totally misunderstood what you’re doing here with this trick, disregard my post…
I think Ambrose has it articulated pretty much perfectly.
I will post up my board in the next few days – it is getting fairly close. Probably in the “show your wood” thread.
Anyway, this board is short and wide – like me. I already had some issues with a rocker table due to the width of the board, so I had some redesign there. So, when I went to glass this board, I went to Home Depot looking for a flexible fabric/vinyl tape measure.
Well they either didn’t have it or I just didn’t find it…
So, the string is just the improvisation of the idea and the idea was to install a check to see where I could put my tape line for a cutlap before I get the glass out. This little step alleviates the possibility of having to pick up all the glass, tail patches, deck patches, or whatever patches and flip the board over and redo your tape line should you accidentally screw it up the first time…
Simple solution; Pull tape and use cloth that is wide enough to accomodate the lap you want. Glassers have been doing that or cutting freelaps for at least forty years. Your right; It occurs to me that your trick is "silly" and an extra step in an already time proven process. Oh and ambrose doesn't articulate nothin'. He where's people down with his inaudible prose.