Somebody help me make a f'n decision, Which resin and how to do it

[OFFSHORE GINGER]

John i sent you an E-Mail, and let me know if you got it ? www.sherfab.com and just curious how far are you from these guys , and have you ever done any business with them ?

[jrork]

Originally Posted by OFFSHORE GINGER

John i sent you an E-Mail, and let me know if you got it ? www.sherfab.com and just curious how far are you from these guys , and have you ever done any business with them ?

Got it Artie. Nope, I've never done business with them and they're a looooong way away. I picked this boat up down that direction and it was over 2000 miles roundtrip.

I'm in Silverdale, Washington out on the Olympic pennisula so I'm a considerable distance from everyone. For my other boat, I used West Systems from West Marine mostly because West Marine is close. By the time I started adding my time driving, fuel , ferry and/or bridge tolls I can absorb some excess cost because it's close.

[jrork]

Originally Posted by Yellowjacket

John,

Less is more and easier. I'd bed the stringers into place with a thickened epoxy. I use wood flour from Raka, it has a very nice mahogany look to it. Mask beside the stringers, where you want the fillet to end, bed them in the thickened epoxy and then use a tongue depressor as a fillet shaper that will hold the stringers in place just fine. As the epoxy starts to harden pull off the masking tape and you will have a nice straight line at your fillet edge. After that sets up you can sand the stringers and clean them up, then do your glassing.

Working around strips or tabs of glass is just going to be more of a mess and it won't be any stronger. Figure out how you want to jig the stringers into place and hold them there first and then just glue them down. After that is set up then work with the cloth. Trying to work cloth if the stringers are moving around is going to be a PITA and it isn't going to come out well at all. Once the stringers are in place and won't move you can glass to your hearts content.

I like to use cloth tape for this kind of work since the edges are bound and they don't fuzz up and make a mess of things. Not as big an issue if you are putting plastic on top to get a smooth surface, but a bigger pain if you don't. You might not be able to use tape since you are probably looking at a wider strip than 8 inches, but you might be able to if you laid up one side at at time and then wrapped it over the top with a couple of layers later.

A half a gallon of resin and a quart of hardner should be plenty. Depends on how much glass cloth you are using, but a gallon is probably overkill.

This is super helpful YJ! Thanks so very much.

[jrork]

Okay, I've made a decision on brand of resin. I'm going with West System for these reasons.

1. I used it on the other boat and really feel comfortable using it again.

1. If I need any material while in the middle of the project, I can get it here locally. All the other products are either 1 1/2 hour away or thru mail order

1. I dont need much epoxy so the added cost doesnt outwiegh the convienence

I do have a question about their hardeners. Is there a shelf life on them? I have quite a bit of hardener left from before but to be honest, it's probably been 2 years since I last used it.

Thanks again everyone for all the help

[OFFSHORE GINGER]

John , i have west on the shelf that actually is over three years old that i use every once and a while and seems to work just fine .hey , if it really worries you run a small test batch or call west Systen toll free and talk with one of there tech's .

[Yellowjacket]

What I would look for in a resin is something that has no blush. If you have a no-blush resin you don't have to wash it down to make sure that the next layer will stick. Just rough it up and you are fine. If the resin blushes you have to clean it to get the next layer to stick. For me that was a bigger deal since the area where I was working on was wood and if I got it wet I needed to dry it then too.

For your purposes it might be ok, but I'd look for a no-blushing resin just to make life easier.

[jrork]

Thanks guys. Will do on both accounts!

Happy Thanksgiving..........john

[jrork]

Well, I've been busy getting ready for this week when I'm going to lay some glass with my son who's home from college for the holidays.

Picked up some beautiful clear Douglas Fir for stingers.

Much more appropriate size compared to the old stringer material if I do say so myself!



Cutting out a new bulkhead that will offer more support that the butchered one that was in there.



Got the stringers and some new gunnel supports roughed in



Stringers are dead nutz 90 degrees to the tunnels



My son came home from college yesterday while I was at work and finished cutting the stringers down, gunnel supports, bulkhead and made some additional seat supports to glass in.



Such a punk!

[OFFSHORE GINGER]

L@@king g@@d boss ...................