Martin Schöön wrote in message . ..
On Thu, 27 May 2004 07:54:05 -0700, Parallax wrote:

I have been working on Minicup #2 but ran out of colloidal silica
epoxy thickener and do not feel like driving all the way across town
to West marine. So, I recalled some discussions about using talcum
powder or wood flour for this purpose. First, I used some of my wifes
powder till she found out and blew a gasket over it. I checked,
powder is expensive, makes the boat smell funny too. Then, I recalled
cornstarch is used as a thicken er for stews and soups and I had a
little and it worked fairly well. When it ran out, I used regular
flour, it does not work as well but is ok. I wonder if I could mix a
bug killer like Sevin dust with it to help preserve the wood.

What filler to choose depends on what you want to achieve:

-Colidica Silica for just making a thick but heavy putty.
-Micro baloons for making light-weight and easy to sand putty.
-Fibres to reinforce putty.
-Pigments

You could mix any of the abovementioned fillers to blend the properties
of the putty. Fibres could be anything including sawdust.

Some of the substances you mentioned are probably no good but for
laughs. Stick to the ones I listed and live happy. Do experiements
to find out how the different fillers work and how much to use for
different applications.


I appreciate all of this info. However, given the choice between
doing something right and doing it weird, I am unable to stop myself
and inevitably choose weird.
Happened to have some copper dust from a previous experiment to make
antifouling that could be applied underwater (yes, it worked) so I
added some of this to the areas to be enclosed in the theory that it
would prevent fungal rot.