A fairing question

[missinginaction]

Hi folks. I was placing 6 oz cloth over the douglas fir deck on my old Silverton this morning. I was called away by an emergency and by the time I hurried back my resin had kicked off and I was unable to cut the cloth, peal it up and make a flat seam.

So I have a couple of seams in my fordeck that are going to need fairing. I have a large tub of microballoons but I've never faired an area this large before. If I mix up say a quart of resin to roll onto this deck how much fairing material would you mix in? Am I looking for ketchup consistency, mayonaise, or thinner? I'd like to get the seams where the cloth is doubled up as smooth as possible.

MIA

[PAR]

Before you mix up the goo, get out the grinder and make sure you don't have high spots.

I usually use more then just micro balloons, even in a light weight fairing mixture.

How much filler, well who knows really, you just add and mix until you get the consistency you want. You can work out formulas and ratios all you want, but temperature differences and resin viscosity will toss most of these measurement rules out the window. In other words, a mixture that was perfect the day before with two cups of filler, maybe runny the following day, with the same 2 cups of filler, from environmental differences.

You wouldn't work with that much epoxy at once (a quart) as this is a lot of fairing to get applied and smoothed out before it kicks off. Work smaller batches so you have some control.

Consistency depends on the surface, what you're filling, you're skill level, etc. Assuming your foredeck has some crown to it, you'll want loose ketchup, so it doesn't sag. Since the crown is probably slight, running and sagging will not be a big issue so you can make it fairly loose.

The big mistake is to apply too much thinking you'll just sand it down smooth, trust me this isn't the way. Light (thin) coats and a "sneak up on it" approach is much better for the novice fairer.

Work small batches Grasshopper, you'll get there.