John,
Good information and great job debunking mind myths. I may try it on this winters builds.

: Recently, Glen Smith posted that someone (Whitworks) on Bear
: Mountain Boats Forum had posted a squeegie-less method for
: removing excess epoxy during the fiberglass wetout step.
: Whitworks describes a facile technique that presses paper towels
: into the pooled epoxy with the roller that one has just used for
: wetting out the glass. I can report that it is fast, easy,
: inexpensive and creates far less mess than any squeegie-man
: would have you believe. Certainly, far less mess than that
: created by attempting to squeegie foamed, excess epoxy, into a
: paper cup.

: I used the blue colored towels, SHOP MAX brand, by Tork. First, wet
: out the glass with epoxy with a roller as usual. Then, rather
: than using a squeegie to move all the excess epoxy (you can
: find) to the edge of the work field (sheerline)... you place
: overlapping paper towels over the wet glass and go over the
: towels with the roller you just used for the wetout. Then peal
: off the towels and throw them in the trash. The inside deck of
: my Guillemot L took less than half a roll of towels.

: Much speculation was made of the mess: Yet no epoxy dripped on the
: floor and I did not have to change my gloves (other than to take
: a photograph.) ie. less mess. Is there paper towel waste? Yes,
: less than half a roll.

: Much speculation was made of the lint: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, OMG this has
: to be the silliest arguement I have ever seen in virtual
: print... even a damn fool knows not to use paper towels to SCRUB
: liquid epoxy off of wet fiberglass fabric. The roller is used to
: press the liquid into the paper. Plain and simple there is NO
: lint. Furthermore, when I have used a squeegie (even a very
: flexible one made from polypro milk bottles) I eventually get a
: small amount of fiberglass lint here and there from the scraping
: motion of the squeegie across the glass fibers. ie. LESS lint.
: Truth be told, the lint thing was the epiphany for a really good
: idea.

: It is much faster: With a roller, I can go across a surface 10
: times faster than I can with a squeegie. It took me an hour to
: get ALL of this done. While I did not weigh things out to make
: sure I was leaving less weight of epoxy in the final product, my
: general feeling is that one can remove more excess epoxy, in a
: more uniform fashion than one can with squeegie technique.

: Not yet discussed. A roller handle is much more comfortable to me
: than holding onto a squeegie. My hand cramps up after a while
: when using a squeegie. Not a problem with this technique.

: Problems created: Hmmm... I don't need nearly as many squeegies.
: Hence, I will not be drinking as much milk... to get the
: plastic... to make the squeegies... AND, I have more time on my
: hands... to drink... single malt... and write up posts. I hope
: the above was coherent.

: Thank you: Glen Smith

: THANK YOU: Whitworks!!!!