Re: Heating Epoxy??

Posted by Howard on Oct 21, 2005

if you can keep your garage warm (80 to 90 degrees) you can easily get more than one glue cycle per day. but in my view, "applying heat" is not really helping you go much faster... and is potentially creating more problems to work around.

for me, i would not go less than ~ 24 hour cycle for any part where the glue is under a lot of stress (scarf joints, attaching coamings, etc).

but having a warm location can easily let you get in more than one fill coat in a day.

a careful review of the building steps will naturally suggest ways to reduce the number of cycles needed to get the gluing done in a way that minimizes the total elapsed times of a build. if one has the availability and the desire, it is fairly straight forward to get a kayak built in as little as a 7 day elapsed time frame.

you need to be cautious about "applying heat". it is best to work at constant and uniform (avoiding the excessive heating of one part of the boat) temperatures. for certain steps like glassing the hull, it is actually preferable to have the temperature decreasing slightly. the quick application of localized heat can cause the problems like outgasing, bubbling epoxy-woodflower mixes, warping, and premature epoxy kicking (the epoxy hardens in the middle of your step).

if it is your first boat, while it is fun to work fast, the quality of what you do may also end up being important to you. give yourself time to think and enjoy the process. sometimes that takes some time to work through issues.

trust me, glue time will probably not be the limiting factor on how fast you get it done.

best of luck.

hs

In Response to: Heating Epoxy?? by John Short on Oct 21, 2005

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