Anthony A
Well-known member
Not quite sure I did the right thing.
I put the final coat of epoxy on the bottom of my Kara two weeks ago (after bolting in the runners and epoxying those) and for some reason, 4 dime-sized spots simply refused to dry/cure. I think that the last batch of epoxy I mixed was perhaps not as well mixed with hardener on the bottom of the mixing bowl since that was the last section I did. Also, even after two weeks, the boat "felt" stickier than previous epoxy coats - could this be due to humidity?
In any case, I did not have much choice as my friend was moving and he needed his garage to store things for this weekend! So we went ahead and sanded the boat. It became apparent that the epoxy hadn't completely cured, there were little splotches of epoxy on our sanders. Not too many that would make the sanding difficult, and there was no apparent exposure of deeper layers. When we got to the trouble area, the 4 dime-sized spots were made apparent. I gently scraped out the gooey material as best as I could with a spatula - the fiberglass was still intact underneath, and it didn't feel like the epoxy coats right next to the FG were comprimised, although it was difficult to tell since it was still semi-wet.
I decided to "patch up" the whole section with my remaining epoxy by mixing in a good bit of wood flour to make it pasty like peanut butter (it worked well on the transom and on the runners). I checked it at lunch time today as I went over to plug in my de-humidifier (too little too late, I know), and it seems to be drying quite nicely!
My question is could this patch be a problem down the road? The only thing I could think of is if I scrape that section of the boat very badly on some rocks , it could expose the inner layers of the boat? Is it weaker the way I did it? Should I have been more aggressive in removing that layer of epoxy from the surrounding area and re-applied regular epoxy?
As always, your comments and ideas are always welcome!
Anthony
I put the final coat of epoxy on the bottom of my Kara two weeks ago (after bolting in the runners and epoxying those) and for some reason, 4 dime-sized spots simply refused to dry/cure. I think that the last batch of epoxy I mixed was perhaps not as well mixed with hardener on the bottom of the mixing bowl since that was the last section I did. Also, even after two weeks, the boat "felt" stickier than previous epoxy coats - could this be due to humidity?
In any case, I did not have much choice as my friend was moving and he needed his garage to store things for this weekend! So we went ahead and sanded the boat. It became apparent that the epoxy hadn't completely cured, there were little splotches of epoxy on our sanders. Not too many that would make the sanding difficult, and there was no apparent exposure of deeper layers. When we got to the trouble area, the 4 dime-sized spots were made apparent. I gently scraped out the gooey material as best as I could with a spatula - the fiberglass was still intact underneath, and it didn't feel like the epoxy coats right next to the FG were comprimised, although it was difficult to tell since it was still semi-wet.
I decided to "patch up" the whole section with my remaining epoxy by mixing in a good bit of wood flour to make it pasty like peanut butter (it worked well on the transom and on the runners). I checked it at lunch time today as I went over to plug in my de-humidifier (too little too late, I know), and it seems to be drying quite nicely!
My question is could this patch be a problem down the road? The only thing I could think of is if I scrape that section of the boat very badly on some rocks , it could expose the inner layers of the boat? Is it weaker the way I did it? Should I have been more aggressive in removing that layer of epoxy from the surrounding area and re-applied regular epoxy?
As always, your comments and ideas are always welcome!
Anthony
