Today I lost my peanut-butter virginity. Specifically, I mixed up some epoxy and thickened it with wood flour, which is refined sawdust. After achieving a peanut-butter consistency -- similar color, too -- I loaded it into a makeshift pastry bag (a freezer bag with a corner cut out). Then I squeezed the mixture into the gaps all around the bow and stern transoms.
Theoretically I went between stitches, and will fill everything in after this batch cures and I pull the stitches. However, I am pretty sure I glued in a couple of stitches, too, despite my attempts at neatness. I am assured there is a method for getting them out.
As you can see, I didn't make much of an attempt to get these "tacks" purty-looking, on account of they will be covered by fillets later (no, not beef loin or salmon -- I'll explain later). But I did try to wipe up any excess that won't otherwise be covered up.
In one other respect did my virtue depart: I experienced, for the first time, a batch of epoxy "going off." This is epoxy professional slang for epoxy starting to get warm if it's in a bug glump and starts to cure. It generates its own heat. So the pastry bag got warm in my hand as I worked. It went off. I am not sure what this specific use of slang says about the epoxy community. Sure, I don't want to know.
As so many others have reported, I used less than the recommended amount of epoxy (I made four ounces -- the instructions called for six -- and I had a little left over).
In two days' time, after the epoxy cures, I'll pull the stitches out (I hope). The transoms will be tacked in place. And then I will apply fillets. Just you wait.
