20" Whitehall Question

[Tom Hoffman]

I am starting to sand out my Whitehall and am finding that there are long areas where the strips that were coved and beaded did not come into perfect contact, because of the curvature of the boat and the rotation of the strip in the cove. As I sand some of the edge of the coved strip sands off and a long crack opens up, it does not go all the way through, and it is firmly glued, but there is a long thin crack sometimes an 1/8" wide and a 1/16th or a little more deep.

Now the question: Do I need to fill these? Or will the epoxy fill in as I squeegy it down through the cloth?

[Garrett Lowell]

Fill them.

[Bob Smalser]

Originally posted by Garrett Lowell:
Fill them....using high-adhesive thickener, not weak fairing compound.

Get the hull sound and smooth before the fabric, not during or after.

[Tom Hoffman]

What exactly should I fill them with. Epoxy and wood flour or something else??

[MJC]

Welcome to the strippers surprise!

Are you planning to finish her bright?

What wood are the strips?

Epoxy and wood flour will end up looking darker than most woods, sort of an dark honey brown.

I've tried just filling with carpenters glue, and with expoxy / wood flour, and wasn't pleased with the way either looked.

You have to fill the gaps with something before glassing.

[Bob Smalser]

Originally posted by Tom Hoffman:
What exactly should I fill them with. Epoxy and wood flour or something else??I use this stuff rather that home mixtures, because the Goo Brothers test this stuff in a lab a bit more sophisticated than my shop.

http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/3866245/47638616.jpg

Keep aliphatic carpenter's glues like Titebond far, far away from your boat, as they can't be glued over in repair work.

[Tom Hoffman]

I was planning on finishing her bright, but now with the filling problem, I may be forced to paint at least the bottom up to a water line.

Bob, I have the west system micor baloons, and epoxy, I was thinking of using cedar wood flower as then the wood would be the same. Would that work??

It is a WRS strip boat.

[Bob Smalser]

Wood flour is what most people use...sure.

I like the above, however.

[Tom Hoffman]

Thank you Bob, really appreciate the help.

[garland reese]

You can purchase wood flours like pine or cedar, and mix them together to get a tint that is close. You can mix a bit of cabosil in there too, experiment a bit with some scrap to get an idea of what might be the best approach. You may find that you can fill in the cracks and still have an acceptably nice bright finish...after all, it is a boat and over the course, dents, dings, and the occassional repairs are inevitable.....character building ;)

I did not use bead and cove, partly for that reason. You really have to be sure that you get the strips pulled in fully.

Good luck!
Garland

[JimConlin]

What you use to fill with affects only appearance, not strength. If you hope to finish bright, it's both difficult and important to match the color of the filler to the color of the strips. Any wood flour in epoxy ends up much too dark. The Gougeon #404 stuff, while white, is very difficult to sand, especially next to soft cedar. Through experimentation, i've ended up using a mixture of mostly microspheres (which are white) and a little wood flour. When you get the right recipe, save some aside, because fairing your filler usually reveals a few more voids.
When fairing, don't leave spots of resin from the fairing putty on the planking. They won't finish to the same color.

[Bob Smalser]

The hull is curved across the joint you are filling with 404, right?

Use an old fine-cut machinist's file to take it down flush, so you don't have to sand at all. Remove the bulk by crossfiling and finish "sand" by drawfiling. Switch to a finer-cut file (single cut) if you have to. Much faster, too, BTW. On any hollows in the hull, use a sharp gouge to pare off the bulk of it followed by a curved card scraper. Save your power sander for when everything is close to fair, or you can get into trouble quickly even without any hard epoxy blobs here and there.

The stuff is white....dye it to match with the brown dye the Goo Brothers make for the purpose.

You can use almost anything to fill your voids...and gap-filling epoxy isn't as strong as a tight wood joint....but using 404 is as strong as you can get in the absence of a perfect joint.

[ 06-06-2005, 03:10 PM: Message edited by: Bob Smalser ]

[Todd Bradshaw]

Personally, I wouldn't use 404 on gaps in a cedar stripper if it was the last stuff on earth. By the time it's glassed over styrofoam would be strong enough to do the job (if of course, one could figure out how to get it in there) so cosmetics are the only criteria and 404 is much too different in hardness from the surrounding cedar. There is no reason to have to adopt any kind of gap by gap fairing technique to fair out a stripper. Microspheres with a little wood flour added for color would be my choice and is what I've used for such jobs for many years. It will cut down quickly and cleanly and will be close enough to the cedar that you can blast over it with nearly any tool or sander without having to worry about hard and soft spots.

[George Roberts]

I have learned to like tightbond glue dyed dark between square edged strips. The glue is about the same color as epoxy with wood fiber.

About your question ...

You can fill your cracks with plain epoxy. Put a thin seal coat of epoxy on the hull, after it cures fill the gaps with plain epoxy, after it cures fair with a sharp tool, glass.

[Tom Hoffman]

Thank you all for the good help.....

Tom...

[Don Kurylko]

G1 or G2 Epoxy Glue from Industrial Formulators of Canada is a clear resin and hardener that does not require any filler. The crack will still show, but the joint will be strong. It will not look bad at all finished bright. A damn sight better than miss matched filler compound or wood flour – that definitely will look like a repair.

G series epoxy is pretty thick, but it might still run out of vertical joints, so you may have to tilt the hull to bring it horizontal. I often use wide strips of masking tape to hold glue in place till it cures. It works, but there is some scraping and sanding involved after it hardens.

Actually, if you can tilt the hull and if the crack is not deep or long enough to compromise the structural integrity of the joint, just use the epoxy resin you already have without any filler. This will be plenty strong enough. Straight resin has pretty decent gluing properties. Filler mostly keeps the resin from running out of joints anyway.

The GB Brothers book on boat construction has data on the strength properties of thickened and un-thickened resin that you may find helpful, if you have any doubts about using straight resin in this type of application.

[Jay Greer]

Lap strake hulls will open a bit when in dry storage. The planks can also show a gap on the overlap because the wood to wood (faying) contact is further back. If you can't see daylight through them, they won't need filling. In fact, hard filler such as epoxy will lever the planks and possibly start the fastenings once the hull fis launced and takes up. Varnishing the hull upside down will allow varnish to creep into the voids and seal them a bit.

[Jay Greer]

Oops! I see that your boat is not a lapstraker. In this case, I would knife in epoxy mixed with red micros. I built several of the Lapworth thirty sixes that used this form of construction. When they open up, we use the same method to deal with cracks.

[Paulyboy]

So, what about using Gorilla glue? It is a gap filling glue and is tenaceous, and on my adirondacj chairs I make seems to be pretty weatherproof.