Re: thanks a lot kurt

Posted by Kurt Maurer on Apr 29, 2004

Boy howdy... I log in to check on my favorite internet forum, and it's like walking into a familiar and (erstwhile) comfortable clubroom, only to find everyone staring at me.

Oh, so you can't handle a little scientific terminology, eh? Hey, lissen up here, dudes and dudettes: building kayaks and other small boats is hardly some mere recreational thing to be taken lightly. It is rather, as I happen to see it, probably *the most* disciplined, demanding exercise, requiring the utmost in precision methods, and extreme, even excrutiating, levels of human cognitive and motor skill-testing expertise we may EVER casually manage to blunder into in our little lifetimes! Think about it: We are using Space Age technology, right here at home sweet home, and wood from FRANCE (that's fairly impressive all by itself). And you expect me to use such common street jargon as "thickened epoxy"?? C'MON! That's like telling an orthopedic surgeon his next scheduled surgery is to "fix a broke leg bone"...

I *swear* I'm really not trying to impress anyone with my high-falutin' ways. It's just that I do not want any newcoming innocent to come along and take a look at the possibilities of building a boat of their own and think "hey, this ought to be doable." For as anyone who has actually built a kayak will tell you, it is not. Not by mere mortals, anyway. Only those rare Stadivarius-progeny types among us are ever able to actually pull it off with any degree of haphazard success.

And that is why I insist upon speaking, as artisan to artisan, in such highly sober, highly descriptive and exacting language. It is imperitive that we do so. Otherwise, if not built just so, these damned things will EXPLODE on us, and we all KNOW it.

Dookie-Schmutz. Epoxy resin and hardener thickened with wood flour to a peanut butter consistency, used to create relatively lightweight, yet fairly strong, structurally reinforcing masses of epoxy. When properly mixed, it looks like raw brownies batter, and is damnnear irresitable as such. And if you cave in and taste it, as I have been tempted to do so often, at least it is guaranteed to stick to your ribs.

Cheers, Kurt

In Response to: thanks a lot kurt by mick on Apr 28, 2004

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