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Dennis of Douglas wrote:We are now held up because my order of 55 yds of cloth and 33l of east system epoxy from Noahs was LOST in transit by the transport company!!!!
Regards, Dennis of Douglas
Dennis - my condolences. I had a shipment get lost a couple years ago and (un-named supplier) and (shipping company) went round and round pointing fingers and telling me that I had to wait "X" many days to file a report "blah blah blah". Someone finally did get it right but the customer service people for (un-named supplier) forever put me off. They've never gotten another cent.
Noah's has a pretty good reputation I've heard although I've never dealt with them. I'm sure they'll try to work through this with you.
And good luck on the actual fiberglassing of a 30 foot hull. It actually sounds like fun! Make sure you and your mixer are on the same page and talk to each other. Hey if a ding-bat like me can do this you guys sure can.
Tim Eastman
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Be an example worth following
Good Day again, Thanks for the vote of confidence re F'glassing! The lost order is certainly not the fault of Noah's, in fact their shipper Dexter has been very helpful in trying to track down the order. It appears to have failed when the Ontario trucking company tried to interface with a maritime company.
This is one area that I did a lot of searching on since this was the one area that I was worried the most about. Working with wood was something that I was confortable with but epoxy and glass cloth was something quite new to me.
What I found was that there is three different types of posts on any given forum on boatbuilding. There are those people that always pre-coat. There are others that will not pre-coat and have not had problems. Then, there are those that did not pre-coat and have had problems. I never saw one posting from anyone that regretted pre-coating but there was a lot that regretted not pre-coating.
The people that never precoat tend to be seasoned builders but there were some that did this from the start.
After careful consideration of all of the comments that I read I decided to pre-coat. This was my first boat and I did not want to be one of those that regretted not having done so.
I was thinking of precoating my canoe with epoxy before I put the glass on. I had heard that some folks thin the precoat out to get better penetration into the wood and a thinner lighter coat, and then put the glass on while the epoxy precoat is still green. For best results how much should you thin the precoat out and with what?
Woody - I would recommend contacting the epoxy manufacturer about that. I know that System Three Silver Tip Laminating epoxy the unthickened epoxy is quite runny. We used it for everything and it was great for the pre-coat and the wetouts and the fill coats.
It did not need thinning at all. In fact I don't know that you could advisably thin mixed epoxy as that just adds more mixing time to your batch and it would start kicking off before you get to putting it on your hull.
It's not like you're thinning varnish. They are two completely different animals.
Tim Eastman
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Be an example worth following
Somewhere on the West epoxies website is a page describing how epoxy can be thinned with acetone, IIRC... but the epoxy loses strength and may not cure well. They don't recommend doing it.
There are lower-viscosity epoxies around, and warming epoxy in a pan of warm water will make it thinner, although that could also reduce the working time.
Big Woody - nicest canoe I've seen yet!! I'm using the herringbone & it is working out fine (staple-free with bungy cords, straps and hockey "sock tape"). I may take your advice and use the double-herring-bone near the middle of the boat....my 2nd boat will be perfect!!
