lowkee
Lieutenant Commander
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2008
- Messages
- 1,890
As some know, I'm into the paint part of my restore. The past few days have included sanding, filling scratches, then sanding some more. Why do you care? Well.. Yesterday I made some filler for the gouges and minor scratches alike on the hull. This hull looks like it slid sideways up and down the eastern seaboard, so tons of filler was required. So.. I mix up some poly, MEKP, wax, cabosil and 3m bubbles into a nice creamy putty similar in consistency to pudding. Happy with my mixing skills I glaze every single scratch and crevice on the hull. Even though I added quite a bit of MEKP I still managed to putty every scratch before it kicked. "Awesome!" I think to myself. Time for a break and a beverage (90F here).
20 minutes later I go outside to begin sanding the filler only to find it is still like pudding! Now, I mixed the MEKP in before I mixed in anything else, so I know it should have kicked by now.. but it hasn't! So, without any other options I mix a batch of pure poly loaded with MEKP and proceed to paint it onto every patched spot in the hopes it will harden the putty under it.
20 minutes later I check it for sanding.. still wet! At this point I'm aghast at the amount of goop I now have on my hull and how I somehow became a retard that can't mix poly to save my life. And so begins the logical backtracking.. First, I put a few drops of poly in a mixing tray and add MEKP in a 1:1 ratio.. insta-kick time, baby! .. except there is no kick 5 minutes later.. not even thickened! I have just opened a new bucket of poly today, so I'm scared I was sent a bad batch (my last bucket of resin). So I try the same thing with the last few drops of the previous bucket.. still no kick after 5 mins and 1:1 mekp! What the..? So I storm inside and grab my extra bottle of mekp and section off a tray into 3 sections.. one for just resin, one for resin and old mekp and one for resin and new mekp, same 1:1 ratio as before. 5 minutes later I return to a hard as rock new mekp section and a section of old mekp identical to the pure resin section. In one day's time my bottle of mekp went from working perfectly to not working at all.
Lesson of the day is.. when you know your MEKP is getting near the 45 day mark.. begin testing it daily before you goop on a hull's worth of crap, only to end up with 3 layers of gunk in order to begin sanding your hull.
Did I mention how much my arms hurt tonight?
20 minutes later I go outside to begin sanding the filler only to find it is still like pudding! Now, I mixed the MEKP in before I mixed in anything else, so I know it should have kicked by now.. but it hasn't! So, without any other options I mix a batch of pure poly loaded with MEKP and proceed to paint it onto every patched spot in the hopes it will harden the putty under it.
20 minutes later I check it for sanding.. still wet! At this point I'm aghast at the amount of goop I now have on my hull and how I somehow became a retard that can't mix poly to save my life. And so begins the logical backtracking.. First, I put a few drops of poly in a mixing tray and add MEKP in a 1:1 ratio.. insta-kick time, baby! .. except there is no kick 5 minutes later.. not even thickened! I have just opened a new bucket of poly today, so I'm scared I was sent a bad batch (my last bucket of resin). So I try the same thing with the last few drops of the previous bucket.. still no kick after 5 mins and 1:1 mekp! What the..? So I storm inside and grab my extra bottle of mekp and section off a tray into 3 sections.. one for just resin, one for resin and old mekp and one for resin and new mekp, same 1:1 ratio as before. 5 minutes later I return to a hard as rock new mekp section and a section of old mekp identical to the pure resin section. In one day's time my bottle of mekp went from working perfectly to not working at all.
Lesson of the day is.. when you know your MEKP is getting near the 45 day mark.. begin testing it daily before you goop on a hull's worth of crap, only to end up with 3 layers of gunk in order to begin sanding your hull.
Did I mention how much my arms hurt tonight?
