JEM Watercraft

Outside is now fillayed...er. fill-ated...uh...fill-ate....whatever.
It goes *very* fast with two people. We left the young-un out of this particular chore. 10-year-olds and epoxy don't mix well, unless you need them to sit real still for a while
However, Kym does stained glass for a hobby (and sewing and soap-making and chip carving and woodturning and anything artistic), and doing epoxy seams on a canoe maps very well from doing solder seams on stain glass. So I slopped and gopped epoxy on the seams and she came right behind making each one purty and perfect. We were able to whip out all the seams on the canoe in a couple hours.

Here's how she's looking:


Tomorrow she's going to cut out all the ties and maybe start sanding if the garage isn't set to "broil."

Javier,

I particularly like that your family is involved. As Mick would say, Good on ya, Mate!" (pronounced ma-ight)

Well, looks like ol' Murphy has to get his licks in. Not sure what I did, but one of those seams was still jelly-like today. I think my cardinal sin was adding the wood flour before I'd mixed enough, which I compounded by adding too much wood flour then trying to fix it with more epoxy. I should have let that batch go. Lesson learned: If you *think* you screwed the pooch on a batch of epoxy it's better to toss it than use it to fillet seams and then have to take it all out again the next day when it's a gooey mess.
I had to scrape out the whole seam, then mixed a *good* batch of epoxy very carefully and re-did the seam. Sigh. Couldn't remove the ties or sand tonight My inexperience with epoxy cost me tonight. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

Mate, I'm sure it will be.

Re the epoxy & wood flour, I'm not very good at it but i mix up small batches at a time, and apply it that way. I thoroughly mix the resin & hardner before adding the wood flour.

I use a 4 to one mix of epoxy and have a little bucket of the wood flour handy and ladle it in by the tea spoon till I am happy with the mix.what works for me is 100mls of resin to about 41/2 heaped tea spoons of flour. I mix in 3 spoons full straight away and then keep adding a little till it is right.

Good luck with round two

The good news is that I did small batches, so only one seam was the problem. Can you imagine if I had to redo all the seams!

Javier,

Get a large, wooden post. Every time you learn a lesson whittle in a notch. Pretty quick you'll have a walking stick. ;-}}

PS: We ALL make these mistakes. You are not trodding a path upon which there are no footprints.

[quote="jcubero"]The good news is that I did small batches, so only one seam was the problem. Can you imagine if I had to redo all the seams![/quote

It happens to the best of us.

Then it happens to Jack too.

jem wrote: It happens to the best of us.

Then it happens to Jack too.

...that's going to leave a mark!

Kayak Jack wrote:Javier,

Get a large, wooden post. Every time you learn a lesson whittle in a notch. Pretty quick you'll have a walking stick. ;-}}

Jack
If he is like us it will be a toothpick , a really short , thin one.... more like a splinter.

Chuck.
Yep we have been there , done that and did not even get the "T" Shirt.

jem wrote:It happens to the best of us. Then it happens to Jack too.

One day, in the Olde west, a fella got married. After leaving the church, he was lifting his new bride up into the buggy. A nearby celebrator touched off a scatter gun and the horse reared up.

The new groom settled his bride, walked to the horse's head, pulled the bridle down, looked the horse in the eye, and said, "That's one."

On the way to the ranch, a rattler was in the trail and the horse shied, and reared up again. He stepped down shot the rattler, again grabbed the bridle, and told the horse, "That's two."

At the ranch, some "friends" had taken a short cut and set up a shivaree. Bugles, dynamite, more shotguns, etc. Horse reared up in the traces a third time. Quietly, he got down, drew his hand gun, and shot the horse dead right there. His new bride started chiding him to hold his temper, the horse was only shying from his rowdy friends misbehavior.

Looking her in the eye, he said, "That's one."

So, Matt, that's one.