What DO you do with all of those paint cans and wood scraps anyway?

Friday, February 26 Ok, this looks a lot like the picture from yesterday. What is different is in me. read on.

You may have sensed my trepidation about this project from yesterday's post. What I didn't say yesterday was that my reading suggested to me that the epoxy would be tacky within 2 hours. THREE hours after I applied the epoxy it was still very wet. FOUR hours - the same. (That's why I was up so late last night Sean).


I went to bed thinking that I would wake up to a dozen pieces of wood that would have to be cleaned of the poorly mixed epoxy. What I found was a shimmering, crystal clear bond that was almost as hard as a rock. It will take another day to reach that point. I guess it is safe to continue.

I suspect that your experience with epoxy, like mine, is limited to the small tube you buy to fix the nick-nacks that the dog knocked over. I am playing with a few gallons of the stuff on a small investment. It has to be mixed carefully (the manufacturer suggests the use of a scale that is accurate to within a gram. I used to have one of those back in the early 70s). If you get it wrong it may NEVER harden and you have to scrape all of the "bad" epoxy off, clean up with acetone, wait for your head to clear, and go at it again.


Concatenating the 2 pieces of wood: The process for bonding 2 of the pieces together involves several steps

• sand the butt ends,


• lay them close together,


• slather with epoxy


• place a piece of fiberglass tape over the joint


• slater some more (you actualy want to control the amount applied)


• cover with mylar (epoxy doesn't adhere to mylar)


• poke at the mylar repeatedly to drive any bubbles out


• place a scrap of wood over the mylar (make sure it is smaller than the mylar or it will be a part of the kayak forever)


• place a brick on the scrap of wood to weigh it down


• comb out any excess epoxy with the paint brush

Repeat this 24 times and you will have a dozen strips of wood ready to be stitched together.

A note about bricks: The manual from the manufacturer is extremely well written. It covers all of the details clearly and unambiguously without a lot of extraneous verbiage. It recommends bricks to apply pressure because they are the right size and weight. When I built my deck 6 years ago, I salvaged thousands of bricks from the patio which the deck replaced. These bricks were once paving a street in Lansdale, but now they are mine and buried in the 3 plus feet of snow we have received lately. I had failed to anticipate the need for the bricks, consequently, when I was ready to get going with the first steps of assembly, I trudged out into the snow to retrieve a few of them. (Pointer- make sure that you wash any dirt off the bricks or you will have extra sanding to do in the morning.) I have got to get better at staying in the moment.