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jim.isbell jim.isbell is offline
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First recorded activity by BoatBanter: Jul 2006
Posts: 109
Default Surface Moistures and Epoxy

On Sep 23, 6:18 pm, "Beardow T & P" wrote:
Thanks for the advice, guys!

T.

"Beardow T & P" wrote in messagenews:A4UHi.195768$fJ5.173267@pd7urf1no...

I am milling 16' lengths of western red cedar into strips for a jollyboat.
This wood is fresh from the forest and is moist to touch.


Can I have some opinions on what the surface moisture shld be before I
epoxy and FG this stuff?


Cheers, T.
--


My advice. Bone dry. I recently built a canoe with Western Red Cedar
and Teak strips. It was dry, or so I thought. I fiberglassed it and
then laid on 10 coats of varnish over a period of several weeks. Each
coat had dried for more than 24 hours, including the epoxy. Then I
set it on the lawn for several hours where it was in the sun while I
took some pictures of it. That afternoon I went to retrieve it and
found hundreds of white, tiny, bubbles coming up through the well
cured epoxy and glass. It looked like needlepoint as each of the
little bubbles was evenly spaced by the grid of the glass cloth. ALL
the bubbles were from the strips of Cedar. Apparently the Teak was
too dense to hold moisture.