Quick Heating and Quick Cooling

Heating the Glass Close-Up
Originally uploaded by OzzyC.

As mentioned in the last entry, we used a heat gun to heat up the stiff fiberglass, and soften the epoxy. Immediately upon softening, we laid a cool metal weight on top of the newly-softened fiberglass. This helped the fiberglass lay flat as it should.

As we went, we learned that we could run the heat gun in front of the weight, which would heat the fiberglass and epoxy, and we could immediately slide a weight behind the heated area. this would ensure the area would lay flat. Ive gotta say, it was a pretty clever trick.

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The Journey Continues

Flaws in the Epoxy
Originally uploaded by OzzyC.

You may remember from our last couple of entries that we ran out of epoxy. In order to overcome this potentially disasterous problem, we heated the cured epoxy with a heat gun, and applied epoxy to the rest of the boat.

This picture shows that, for the most part, our approach worked incredibly well. However, also shown in the picture, we had a few spots that were completely starved and didnt adhere to the hull at all.

How did we overcome this problem??? Read on and find out.

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Heating Fresh Epoxy

Heating the Transom II
Originally uploaded by OzzyC.

There were a couple of areas on the rear transom where the glass didnt lay down to our liking. Greg decided to see if heating the epoxy in this area would work. After a few minutes, we discovered that the epoxy got very thin and dripped a lot. This tended to starve the fiberglass, didnt help the fiberglass adhere to the plywood at all, and the epoxy that remained in the fiberglass had dried enough to touch after a mere five additional minutes.

In short, I dont recommend using a heat gun on uncured epoxy. Its a good way to give yourself a second chance on cured epoxy though. In fact, Id call it a sheer stroke of genius on Gregs part.

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Weighting the Transition Area

After the Next Round of Epoxy
Originally uploaded by OzzyC.

To help ensure a good bond in the area where we ran out of epoxy, we laid a slightly thicker layer of epoxy, then laid a sheet of plastic over the transition area, laid a piece of plywood over all of that, and weighted it down. From the transition point on, we epoxied as normal.

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