26 January 2009
Day one
Step one.
Paint on a coat of West Systems epoxy mixed with slow hardener. We mixed about 8 oz of epoxy at a time. Once mixed you only have about 10 minuets to use it before it begins to harden. In order to prolong this working time we keep the resin and hardener on ice in a cooler.
Step two.
Lay down mat and pour on the epoxy. This is not as simple as it sounds. You need to wet out all of the fibers being careful not to get any air bubbles. Once it's all saturated you use a plastic squeegee too remove as much of the epoxy as possible. If you leave too much epoxy in the fiberglass it will be brittle.
Step three.
Lay down the roving and wet it out.
Step 4
Lay down the cloth ect....
We wanted a finished product with a thickness of approximently ΒΌ inch. One layer each of mat, roving and cloth is about 1/8 inch. From step one through step 4 required about 3.5 hours. We wanted to give it plenty of time to harden before the evening dew so we called it quits for the day. In this weather eoxy gets hard in about 30 minuets but requires 24 hours to really cure.