Re: another epoxy Q

Posted by George K on Apr 5, 2007

Jay,

You have discovered the dreaded fisheyes of epoxy. The only thing you can do now is burn the desk in a sort of Viking funeral. Just be glad it didn't happen to any extent on the kayak....

Okay, the only part of the above that is true is the fisheyes. There are several theories about what causes them and I'm holding to the surface tension one. I don't think anybody really understands why the surface tension would be different in some areas, could be due to static electricity from wiping, microscopic dust particles left over after cleaning and wiping held in place by the afore mentioned static, who knows? You've done nothing wrong with sanding, cleaning and preparing the surface, it's just that the epoxy can't get a good grip in certain areas. You're right about a dry foam brush being able to pull them into the area and it might stay, it might not. When I get the problem, and I also use slow hardener for the most part, I wait about 30-45 minutes and use the dry foam brush trick on them. The viscosity of the resin is a bit higher, i.e. it's getting thicker, and therefore the surface tension is getting higher. It will stick better to itself and cover those areas and will, for the most part, stay.

If you can't get rid of them you can always just sand out the depressions a bit and put some epoxy just in those areas. After sanding and varnishing they'll all disappear. So there's really no reason to burn the desk after all. However, if you decide on doing it anyway we want pictures!

George K

In Response to: another epoxy Q by Jay on Apr 5, 2007

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