Boat Building Forum

Find advice on all aspects of building your own kayak, canoe or any lightweight boats

Re: WoodCraft
By:Paul Jacobson
Date: 11/24/1998, 9:33 pm
In Response To: Re: WoodCraft (Robert Woodard)

> I think I want the epoxy
> around the voids to completely harden before filling them to keep from
> pulling any additional cloth away from the wood. Sound reasonable?

It is not necessary to wait that long. Once the epoxy has set it has more than enough strength to resist the tiny pressure you are adding wwhne you insert a few drops more of resin in an air pocket. You are just not going to generate that much force -- or at least I hope you aren't.

In fact, for a while after the resin sets, the glass/resin is quite flexible, and it is pretty easy to insert your glue injector through this to get the fresh resin in the void.

Any voids that are over 2 inches in diameter I do not fill. Same for areas I have totally screwed up. I sand them off, feathering the edges, and put on a patch which overlaps the sanded area. When these set up, I sand down the edgesof the patches, feathering them into the surrounding glass. Then I put on the second coat of resin, effectively filling the weave and also covering the mainsheet of fiberglass cloth, and any patches.

I am not a chemist who can tell you about chmical or physical bonding properties, but I know that if I do my patching after the first coat of resin, then the patches are covered perfectly by any succeeding coats, and can not be detected. The exception to this is if I sand too deeply. The first coat of resin colors the wood, and ehen I sand off the bad glasswork, If I sand too deeply I expose a lighter colored wood which does not return to a darker hue when the resin for the patch is placed over the area. Moral: Sand lightly, nd not more than you must. Best of luck to you. Paul Jacobson

Messages In This Thread

Filling voids
Robert Woodard -- 11/24/1998, 5:26 pm
Re: Filling voids
Kevin Webb -- 11/24/1998, 11:13 pm
WoodCraft
Brian C. -- 11/24/1998, 6:02 pm
Re: WoodCraft
Robert Woodard -- 11/24/1998, 6:39 pm
Re: WoodCraft
Paul Jacobson -- 11/24/1998, 9:33 pm
Re: Filling voids
Ross Leidy -- 11/24/1998, 5:53 pm