On the first two boards I did, the ‘jazz” and the ‘forty one”, I did free laps … the ‘jazz’ turned out quite ugly, and ended up with a very uneven line of cloth which is quite obvious after sanding the filler coat as can be seen in this pic:
It’s smooth, and only cosmetic, but I wanted better. So, with the ‘forty one’ I also did a free lap and tried to get a better line, hoping that would blend the lap better and be less ugly looking, but, not quite there as this pic shows:
Click on any of these images to get a larger view.
So, with the ‘forty one two’ I decided I would try a cut lap. My first ever attempt … so I tapped up the rails on the deck, and went about cutting the cloth more ‘neatly’, I even bought so new super sharp and awesome scissors which made the cloth trimming process much much easier … but, in my usually way, I invited the fuck up fairy back by trimming the cloth so some ended up inside the tapped line, this then lead to the issues when I went to ‘cut’ the lap, since some was overhanging the tape, but other parts were back from it … so I ended up with a bit of an uneven cut. Getting the razor blade to slide along the tap edge and cut was OK where the cloth overhung the tape, but when it hit the spots where the cloth did not make the tape, ah, messy again. Here’ a pic of the lap finished:
That ‘gash’ you can see on the left hand side is where I managed to put the corner of some sand paper into the foam when I was sanding the lap at that point … it was one of the spots where the cut lap did not sit well and needed a bit more effort to sand it down …the right hand side is he best lap I’ve done, and almost blends with hardly (relative to my two previous attempts) any cloth line showing.
So, with the ‘nineteen 97’ the plan is to do a cut lap and I will be taping the whole deck, using butchers paper to stop any laminate resin getting onto the deck, which, on the ‘forty one two’ resulted in a ‘bumpy’ deck … I will also make sure the cloth is well past the edge of the tape. Watch this space … I’m sure the fairy will be back !
PS: My ‘cut lap’ knowledge came from watching you tube video’s !