filleting

[Smokin'Mo]

I was in the process of filleting the stringers to hull and ran out of milled fibres & chopped strand. The supplier was closed on Monday so I thought I'd use anything that would thicken the resin. That anything was flour. Yes the type used for baking. I thoroughly mixed 1 litre of resin with 15ml of catalyst and proceeded to mix in 1 kg of flour to thicken. Although it was not quite PB consistency, after setting a while it seemed to bind ok to the existing pb mix used in the first pass. The air temp was 15c and quite humid and also started raining. As of 10:00pm last night it still had not cured (8hrs.) but seemed to be thickening. This morning it was thicker still but not fully cured. I also noticed a sort of whitening as if the flour was expanding? If it is not cured by the time I get home from work should I scrape it all out? or will it eventually harden? or was this a dumb idea in the first place?

Another area I am concerned with is where the stringers pass over a chine. There is a pocket formed beside the stringer where the chine sits and it is approximately half the length of the stringer. When filleting around this area I used a runny resin/chopped strand mix and poured it next to the stringer in the chine pocket. Is this considered a hard spot? When it kicked it got pretty hot although the hull was warm to the touch from the outside. Should I be concerned about this?

Thanks for any advise.

 

[jonesg]

Re: filleting

I'm a baker, get it out before it sets rock hard.
Flour contains all sorts of ingredients, gluten, protein, ash, bromide, barley etc , many of the ingredients dissolve in water, protein doesn't but most of the other elements do, if it gets wet you'll have resin full of holes where they wicked away.

Then theres the fact that wheat is reactive and will oxydize in 4 days if wet, turn black and rot.
Instant dry rot colony.?

 

[Smokin'Mo]

Re: filleting

Thanks JonesG,
I thought it was a dumb idea from the start but I was bored and had nothing else to do. I will get rid of the soft stuff but leave what has already cured as it will be receiving more resin before laying up the units of glass over top. In the end it will be buried deep into the resin and shouldn't see any water. (at least not while I own it.)

Thanks again.

 

[erikgreen]

Re: filleting

Actually, flour works ok as an epoxy filler. You may get some discoloration as the surface flour grains rot or chemically alter, but most of it is covered with epoxy, which makes it pretty much rot proof.

Up to you, though.

Erik

 

[Smokin'Mo]

Re: filleting

Thanks for the info. I checked it out last night and it seems to be hardening very well. There is some discoloration, mostly white, but it seems to have cured. I think I'll go over it with pb to smoothen it out some more and then apply the units of glass over top.

Thanks again.

 

[jonesg]

Re: filleting

Corn starch works even better ..
until they get wet.

Maybe more sugar.?

Well if you get stuck you can always eat the boat.