I spent yesterday, Saturday, filling the hull seams with epoxy thickened with wood flour. I spent only a couple of hours, maybe three, filling the seams, but then there was this other problem.
First, let me just say that, according to pop stitch-and-glue culture, I was using "peanut-butter' epoxy -- that is, epoxy thickened with enough wood flour to bring it to a peanut-butter consistency. Whoever figured this approach out is at least as smart as the person who invented real peanut butter, because it really works. The epoxy thickens right up, doesn't drip, but can be shaped for awhile until it cures up. To me the process of cramming the goo into the joints and then smoothing them a bit worked pretty well.
The plan then called for me to return, a short time later, to make these little epoxy fillers really smooth by stroking them gently with a gloved finger moistened with denatured alcohol. This had worked well with the transom fillets and I was optimistic ... but then I got sidetracked with weekend planning and dog-walking.
So back to the house I came a couple of hours later, terrier tails wagging behind me, and I went out to check the seams and ... oh oh, they had cured up a bit more firmly than I expected. Hmmmm.
I donned a nitrile glove, slopped some denatured alcohol onto a finger and did some smoothing motions, and nothing happened. I could feel the slightly rough texture of the thickened epoxy through the glove. If it had had the ability to speak, it would have said "too late, Bub. You shouldn't have walked those obnoxious terriers. I'm firm about this."
Astounded, I added a bit more denatured alcohol and rubbed harder. I mean I PUSHED on that stuff, to see if it was really hardened all the way or had just developed a thick skin. What I learned was that if I rubbed enough, and held my mouth right, I could still smooth the seams.
But it would take awhile. Shoot! I waited too long! Zounds!
Oh well. I spent an hour and got it all pretty smooth. There are a couple of drips I'll have to sand down later. But I'm pretty pleased with how all these seams ended up. There's hope.
Oh, and one more thing. Yeah, it looks kinda like peanut butter, but it looks MORE like the stuff my mom used to make up when I was a kid, when she would spoil me with cinnamon toast. Her way to making it was to get some butter kind of soft, then mix in cinnamon and sugar. She would spread the mixture on white bread ... yeah, this was a long time ago ... and put the buttered-up bread under the broiler. She knew JUST when to remove it from the broiler and it was ... oh god it was fantastic. I'm gaining weight just thinking about it.
After awhile I learned that the butter-cinnamon-sugar mixture tasted just fine right out of the bowl -- no need to spread it on bread and fire up the broiler. Actually, it was pretty good either way. But the point is ... there had to be a point, right? ... the point is that the so-called peanut butter texture looks more to me like the cinnamon-butter-sugar mixture.
I think this is going to be a problem. A dietary one.
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