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I am building my second CLC kayak (Hybrid Night Heron) and I messed up on my fillet for the centerline of the hull. Apparently, I must have improperly stirred my epoxy/hardener/woodflour mixtupe and it dod not cure properly. When I spotted several "bulbbles" in the fiberglass tape, I picked at it and found the epoxy mixture still wet (it had been curing for several weeks while we were traveling). I assume I now need to remove ("grind") out all the "wet" epoxy mixture and lay down another fillet from scratch?
If I am missing something and there is another way to proceed, I would welcome any proferred wisdom.
In advance, thank you for any wisdom you can share on this.
Best Wishes,
Tim Clark
3 replies:
RE: Messed Up Epoxy Fillets
Tim,
You're right, you absolutely need to remove all the uncured epoxy. How you do it is up to you. The only requirements are that your method does not damage the rest of the boat and accommodates the fact that uncured epoxy is a toxic material.
Keep in mind that while modern uncured epoxies do not emit much in the way of vapors, heating them will put hot epoxy fumes into the air. So if you're going to do that, pay attention to ventilation and wear a VOC mask. Even better, use a mix of methods and save the heat gun for the cured chunks.
Good luck,
Laszlo
RE: Messed Up Epoxy Fillets
Thank you, Laszlo & DaveJ for your replies & suggestions.
Much appreciated.
Tim Clark
RE: Messed Up Epoxy Fillets
» Submitted by DaveJ_NH - Thu, 8/25/22 » 6:28 AM
Tim,
While I have not experienced this exact situation, one of the several "lessons learned" during my Chester Yawl build was that many epoxy errors can be removed much more easily with the assistance of a heat gun.
Investing in a decent heat gun (about $50) will enable you to soften up and wipe or gently scrape off the bulk of most unwanted epoxy. This reduces the need for a lot of the really hard scraping or grinding.
Hope that helps.
DaveJ