Re: tenting

Posted by LeeG on May 26, 2005

the problem I had with tenting is that the plastic sheeting picks up crud electrosatically and drops it all over the glassed/epoxied kayak. So if the sheet is put back over wet epoxy it dropped stuff on wet epoxy complicating fill coats with bits of sawdust. The other problem was that 4mm wood really doesn't have much mass so that if the shop space really is cold,,<50 degrees,,the thin 4mm wood loses heat quickly so that by the time you get 30minutes into glassing it's down to that shop temperature and the wood is cold again. Putting warm epoxy on cold wood still isn't a solution. I could see tenting having utility for post-curing non-tacky epoxy to speed up the time for sanding prep to varnish/paint. The CLC photo of a tented kayak looks good,,but it's in a 70degree shop. When I tried it in a 45 degree garage with dust,crud,limited space it wasn't practical as using pre-sealed panels, maxing out the circuit breakers with space heaters then turning them off right before applying epoxy. The larger thermal mass of the garage allowed for enough time to finish the job compared to the cold air rapidly sucking the head out of 4mm plywood once the plastic was lifted.

In Response to: Re: epoxie temperature by Mac on May 26, 2005

Replies:

• Re: tenting by John Foster on May 26, 2005