Otterblog
A record of the renovation of a
Wooden Drascombe Longboat 'Otter'
25th January 2007, Laminated rudder box spacers
I
laminated the spacers with three layers of cloth on three sides.
The first one was fine. After it gelled, I cut off the surplus cloth with a knife.
It
wetted out well and I removed the surplus resin so that I could see the
pattern of the cloth.
The
second one, which I did at the same time with the same mix of resin, went
wrong. Air appeared under the laminate. Every time I squeezed it out it
reappeared. In the end I removed the cloth and spread the resin evenly
over the wood.
The WEST System manual says:- "In addition, heating epoxy applied to a porous substrate (soft wood or low density core material) may cause the substrate to “out-gas” and form bubbles in the epoxy coating. To avoid out-gassing, wait until the epoxy coating has gelled before warming it."
When the resin had gelled, I mixed some more resin and applied three layers of cloth, again.
But it did the same thing again and I don't know why. This time I persevered with squeezing out the air for about an hour until it started to gel. As the photo shows, there is still some air there.
Unless stated otherwise, © Colin Watt 2006, 2007
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Last updated: 25 January, 2007