Wow! That's a big chest!

You filler selection sounds zooper dooper to me, although until just
recently, I didn't realize that maple trees bloomed. When on a walk down by
the river the other day, I noticed that the big-leaf Canadian variety had
blooms on them ...all my life living around maples and I'd never noticed
that before! Maple Flowers! (I bet collecting them up is a bugger tho'
....)

My standard filler selections:

Small boats, a.k.a. low physical stress boats: Maple wood flour plus
about 15% silica for everything except fairing. Fairing uses phenolic
microballoons (plus a little silica), although I want to try the new
QuikFair from System Three ...I hate breathing any more powders than I have
too. Bad enough that I have to breath sanded wood and epoxy ...and yes, I
use a respirator. Nothing's perfect and the shop often contains fine stuff
that you can hardly see in the air. I imagine that it collects in my lungs
....

Larger boats: I use silica/epoxy slurry for laminations, drilling witness
holes to ensure an even squeeze everywhere. For high strength gap filling
adhesive and highest strength fillets (under glass), I use 50/50 milled
glass fiber and silica to thicken the epoxy. For unglassed fillets, I use
straight silica (smooth). For all glassed fillets, I use the aforementioned
85% wood flour/15% silica mix. For fairing, I'm using phenolic
microballoons (plus a little silica).

I haven't experimented with cotton fiber. After hearing lists of complaints
from those using plastic fillers, I don't bother trying it.

Brian

--
http://www.advantagecomposites.com/tongass -- My 22' Tolman Skiff project
http://www.advantagecomposites.com/catalog -- Discounted System Three
Resins products


..
"Backyard Renegade" wrote in message
m...
"Brian D" wrote in message
news:cdGmc.43368$0H1.3993970@attbi_s54...
Cotton fibers or wood flour are better for your size of boats, Scotty
...can't remember the WEST designations for these (and you have to ask
them
what is in many of their fillers anyway...)

Brian

(puffs up chest) Yeah, I got my fillers all set man, I've built over
50 of these size boats For the record, I use aerosil, maple flower,
and pine flower in different mixes depending on what I am doing.
Between the three I get what I need. For backings and wood and gap
filling I use wood, mistakes are recut, not filled, I know this is not
always practical in larger vessels.
Scotty




--
http://www.advantagecomposites.com/tongass -- My 22' Tolman Skiff
project
http://www.advantagecomposites.com/catalog -- Discounted System Three
Resins products


.
"Backyard Renegade" wrote in message
om...
Glenn Ashmore wrote in message
news:Csqmc.7893$Lm3.270@lakeread04...
Parallax wrote:

My epoxy is 10 yr old West System stuff and my metering pumps
broke
yrs ago so my mixing is prob a little off. I am using the
colloidal
silica I used yrs ago for blister repair and it seemed to work
then
but I may not be using the righ amount. Today, I plan to buy
another
gallon of the West epoxy, pumps and fibers.

Milled fiber does not thicken epoxy very well. While it is great
for
strong bonding it will definitely not make epoxy stiff enough to
keep it
from sagging. For fairing and filling I mix in microballoons first
then
slowly add silica to get the right consistancy.

I don't use milled fibers. I tried them once but the lamination it
created left the epoxy stiff. For the type of construction I do, stiff
is not necessarily good. Scotty