You can certainly see some raised areas where we didn't get the deck pushed down all the way. Also, about the gap you see between the top of the side planks and the deck: for some reason, on all of my float halves, the top of the deck flange did not quite come out flush with the top of the planks, even when I had the planks shoved up hard against the deck flange mold plate -- weird. On both floats the deck flanges combined to create a true level platform across the float top. So I didn't artificially force the edges of the decks down to close that gap, instead I tried to let the putty squeeze-out to fill it. In the places where that didn't happen, I'll be filling it in with extra putty after the corner radius is done. But I don't see any daylight underneath the deck anywhere, so I'm going to claim success for the moment.After that, there wasn't any other prep work to be done for the starboard float deck so I went ahead and jumped directly into the Goop Zone:
My lovely wife was again outside helping me spread the putty out into an even coat. Well, fairly even anyway:
(Just kidding honey, it looks great.)
I also decided to use the strap-ratchets to help tighten this float deck down. I have eight strap-ratchets, and even with spreading the clamping pressure using boards, it was not enough to pull the deck down 100% everywhere. So I had to go back to using some of the heavy objects:
I'm confident that this approach will work, but I'm now thinking that it might have been better to go buy more strap-ratchets - Those things really pull the deck down good. I just hope I haven't created lots of high and low areas to deal with.
2 comments:
Jay, those gloves may be nitrile but I would use a more heavy duty one. I got some that is to be use handling chemicals, they cover half your lower arm. Look at my site I use them on a lamination photo. Epoxy is a serius matter and you should not get any contact at all, which is hard I know. I was told by the epoxy dealer that those thin ones you use only is to be used for 15 min. then the epoxy can get through. Maybe I am more anxius since I use the stuff at work also.
Regards
Martin
Yes, they are nitrile gloves. Apologies if that picture showed me as being careless around epoxy. For short\easy jobs I will wear just one pair of gloves; for longer\harder\messier jobs I double them up. On most jobs so far I find that I'm changing gloves quite often -- I wasn't aware of a 15 min. limit, but in retrospect I think I usually change gloves within that amount of time. Thank you for the advice though, I agree this stuff is not to be taken lightly. For the larger jobs I also wear a long-sleeved shirt.
Jay
PS Somewhere on the internet I once saw a picture of a guy laminating his boat in his living room around 2am - stark naked. Crazy.
PPS Your epoxy is visually impressive -- bright green! :)
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