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what a mess..

November 27, 2004 - 22:48 — us5214

this sucks.. i haven't screwed up mixing west epoxy for years and now i've managed to put two coats of gooey crap on the corners of my boat (and the extended cockpit).. at least it isn't over the whole boat.. looks like my pumps went bad.. arrghh.. i think you always have to buy new product at the start of any project, after you let the epoxy sit around.. arrrghh

Comments

November 28, 2004 - 20:05 — GeoffS

Yuck...

Ugh... I haven't mixed a bad batch in some time. I wish I had a suggestion about how to get the goop off your hull. Please let us know what you tried (and what worked best).

Cheers,

Geoff S.

November 29, 2004 - 10:17 — us5214

sanding with 100 grit

I just went to town with the 100 grit on the orbital sander and took it all off. I had to change the sanding disk very frequently as they would gum up. I guess it's my boats way of saying I needed to sand the corners more. I then went back over the corners with 150 grit on the orbital sander, hand sanded 220.. .. so pretty much went down to the wood, although the first coat of epoxy was good, thank god, as it penetrated the wood, and even though I sanded down to wood.. you could still see that there was good epoxy in the first layer of wood..

$12 for new pumps and I'm back in business.. I

I've put the another coat back on and now I'll see in the morning if my confidence in epoxy-ng will be back.

If so I'm going to be on a tight epoxy-cure-sand-repeat to get 3 coats of epoxy on and 1 coat of two part varnish. by regatta time.... hmm 12hrs between coats.. still mathematically possible...

think epoxy..
jim
dnus5214

November 29, 2004 - 22:04 — GeoffS

Sounds like a chore...

> I just went to town with the 100 grit on the orbital sander and
> took it all off.

Glad to hear. Apparently, the folks I've talked with about bad-epoxy experiences got it worse than you did. I seem to remember hearing horror stories about scraping semi-solid goo off the wood.

I was just looking at the set of cans/pumps that I keep in my basement shop for small jobs, and realized they are the from the first batch of WEST I ever purchased. Getting pretty nasty, too. Perhaps I'll take a hint from your experience and retire the pumps in favor a pair of newer yellow-topped ones from some almost empty cans I'm emptying right now...

> If so I'm going to be on a tight epoxy-cure-sand-repeat to get 3
> coats of epoxy on and 1 coat of two part varnish...

Worst case, you could probably sail the boat with just a coat or two of bare epoxy for three days w/o too much damage, and then apply the final coats next week.

I'm looking forward to seeing your cockpit mod!

Cheers,

Geoff S.

December 1, 2004 - 03:05 — us5214

on the home stretch..

I've just been doing the edges, but with so much sanding going on, there's some different coloring.. so on my second coat i almost covered the whole boat.. and it looks pretty good.. pretty much a universal color.. I'm going to sand that coat off tonight, and hopefully the last of the crappy gummy crap (there might be a couple of small streaks left..) will be gone.

That would suck to have to scrap it off.. although i did use a razor blade for in a couple of places..

I'm going to sail with just epoxy so I'll put on the third and final coat of epoxy tonight, over pretty much the whole boat and then I'll be ready to go sailing friday.. yipee... strange deja vu as I was refinishing my boat last year, and it was all in pieces the night before the regata.. I didn't think this would happen twice in a row..
I'll do the varnishing coat at my leisure next week.. next year...

I'll upload some pics tonight of the wet epoxy...

We should have the Cours D’Elegance class.. so all the hardwork going into the boats could be appreciated by everybody. ;-)

learn from the mistakes of your iceboating mates and get some new pumps.. sticky gooey epoxy really sucks..