"GB" wrote in message
...
completely ineffective on others, etc, etc. I have a bit of
difficulty with the concept of a near-solid (as in almost brittle)
epoxy contributing any sort of strength to a butted joint between
two bits of ply. I'm not saying it won't work, just that it
conflicts with my own experiential knowledge of how things 'work'.

Well, take a look at this dinghy: www.customware.nl/boats
It is entirely glued together. Not a singe screw and even the skeg (20mm)
wide is simply glued to the keel.

I once did a test: everone keeps telling me that oak doesn't glue well with
epoxy so this was a good starting point for my experiment. I sanded the oak
with grit 40 across the grain, applied some epoxy and let it cure without
clamping.

Next day I drove a 3/16" nail straight through the seam, trying to break the
epoxy. It didn't. the wood around the nail gave up eventually.

My own exposure to fibreglass is limited to canoe-building class
in high school. Those were well before OHS days, so we were all
so high on the fumes that there wasn't much consciousness left
to develop a feeling for just how strong a fibre-tape/epoxy
join might be!!!

Epoxy does not produce fumes. You're mixing it up with polyester.

Meindert