Thursday, April 10, 2008

No Runs, Please.

Just back from an epic 2 hour epoxy-fest in the shop where I coated the exterior hull fiberglass with epoxy, one of 3 coats. The method to get the best, even coverage is to pour a little bit of epoxy on the boat and then spread around the glue with a tiny plastic squeegee. Here's an image taken from my instructional video to get the gist:


By doing it this way I gradually spread the epoxy evenly and worked the glue down into the fabric fibers, and it works very well. It's definitely a little more challenging to work the epoxy into the side panels as gravity makes it run a lot faster, I was constantly trying to keep epoxy from reaching the floor. Down towards the bow and stern I applied epoxy with a brush (for control) and then worked it smooth with the squeegee. 

I'm crossing my fingers that no epoxy runs develop over night, as I noticed when I was working on the inside of the boat. Annoyingly, I would head in for the night with everything looking great only to discover the next day that runs had shown up. I took extra time this evening to really smooth out any spots that looked suspect. Cross my fingers. 

Here are some photos of the first coat from tonight, I love seeing the wood grain come through!
 


3 comments:

Katie said...

Wow that wood grain is amazing!

Pdx76 said...

Looking awesome. Can you redo my hardwood floors when you're done?

Anonymous said...

What a fabulous job! It's simply beautiful.

Cyn