End Damn disaster

Posted by paul on Jun 6, 2005

I'm working on my 16LT and things have been going great. I'm a regular viewer of this forum and have found the sharing of everyone else's experiences incredibly valuable. So with that in mind I'm here to share and try to figure out the cause of my little disaster;

I prepared the cardboard end damns, mixed the epoxy with wood flour, probably a bit thicker than presribed but not by much, filled the ends, and left for the night. The shop is in the basement of my Milwaukee Wisconsin home, temp in the low to mid 60's, slightly cooler at night, which has worked wonderfully for the epoxy thus far.

The next morning, much to my horor, I find the epoxy in the end damns had expanded, as if a bubbling lava pit, adn had overflowed the sides of the boat, and was now hard as a rock. see photos

My only guess is that the heat from the curing epoxy, with too much wood flour retaining the heat, actually made the epoxy expand. THe stern is worse than the bow. Here the heat scenario also fits because after I had poured the epoxy I noticed a small breach in th edamn along the underside of the shear. Additional tape didn't want ot stick to the now wet epoxy side panels, so several bunched-up paper towels taped in place patched the leak. This would also act as a good insulator and retain more heat within the epoxy.

Any thoughts ?

That was Sunday morning. As of Sunday evening after several hours of cutting, rasping, sanding, and recoating, the boat is back to beautiful. Can't tell anything bad ever happen. But you know, I was really looking forward to putting the deck on.

Second issue is; how the heck are you suppose to remove the cardboard after the epoxy damn is hard? Or do we just give it a coat of epoxy and leave it there?

Replies:

• More photos by paul on Jun 6, 2005
• Re: End Dam disaster by CLC on Jun 6, 2005
  • Re: End Dam disaster by paul on Jun 6, 2005
• Re: End Damn disaster by FrankP on Jun 6, 2005
  • Re: End Damn disaster by Roby Golden on Jun 6, 2005
    • Re: End Damn disaster by Laszlo on Jun 6, 2005
• Re: End Damn disaster by Susan on Jun 6, 2005
  • Re: End Damn disaster by George K on Jun 6, 2005
    • Re: End Damn disaster by LeeG on Jun 6, 2005
      • Re: End Damn disaster by Susan on Jun 6, 2005
        • Re: End Damn disaster by LeeG on Jun 7, 2005
• Re: End Damn disaster by Rick on Jun 6, 2005
• It was heat by Robert N Pruden on Jun 6, 2005
  • Thanks all for sharing by paul on Jun 6, 2005