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Permalink Reply by Randy Dersham on November 10, 2011 at 5:32pm

GelMagic is fantastic as a glue.  For scarf joints you should wet the scarf with a non-thickened epoxy first give it just a few minutes to soak into the grain.  Then apply another thin coat and a layer of Gel Magic on top of that. 

 

The GelMagic will fill any gaps and give you a great joint but it does not soak into the end grain as well as unthickened epoxy. 

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Permalink Reply by Greg Jensen on November 11, 2011 at 6:58am

Thank you,

I am almost done cutting my scarfs and should be doing the assembly this weekend.

 

wish me luck

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Permalink Reply by lhedrick on November 11, 2011 at 10:34am

Just a note on epoxy.

 

1.5 quarts of gel magic is around 60 dollars(plus shipping and/or tax).   That's over 160 per gallon.  In general epoxy is mostly manufactured by large chemical corporations like Huntsman chemical who build the basic resins.  In most cases we are all using the same epoxy which came from 2 or 3 bulk chemical companies.  Save money where you can and use the savings for an extra river trip or 2 or a nice set of oars.

 

A glassed stitch and glue boat will us up about 7 gallons of epoxy plus fillers and fiber glass.  A framed boat will use much less or almost none if you are just using paint and oil.  At any rate,  premixed compounds are epoxy with fillers which you add and mix up your self.  It takes no time at all to learn.  Just mix the epoxy and thicken with (ground glass fiber, silica and glass micro spheres).  These fillers are cheap and bulk up the expensive epoxy from 1 gallon to 5.  Big savings and easy to do.  The gelmagic you use is 60 dollars for about 10 dollars worth of epoxy and fillers.

 

I would start by going to raka.com and read the epoxy faq.  You can also download the epoxybook (system 3 or West) not sure which.  Just go to the suppliers of epoxy and read up on all they provide.

 

The people here will also be willing to help you get the mix you are looking for.

 

After building 6 boat in the past few years I have spent about 2500 on just epoxy.  Had I not purchased in bulk I would have spent 5000 plus all the glass and fillers.

 

As you work with epoxy and learn it's properties you will find it has more uses then you ever though possible.

 

For the past few years I shared a shop with a guy who filled cracks in wood slabs with epoxy.  He was using a loctite product and would buy it 8 ounces at a time.  He used a lot of it.  He was spending at least 250 dollars a gallon buying it that way, lost shop time and gas to run out whenever he needed it.  Kind of explains why he was always struggling to pay his share of the shop rent.

 

Epoxy resin has an indefinite shelf life.  

 

Good luck with your boat project.

 

L

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Permalink Reply by Greg Jensen on November 14, 2011 at 8:06am

Great advice and thank you.

I came across the Gelmagic at a local store that is going out of business and selling their inventory at cost.

($11.00 per tube). And once I am out I will be looking for the remaining material, as you suggested, in bulk amounts.

 

Thank you again

 

Greg

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Permalink Reply by Boat-chippy on December 25, 2011 at 1:57am

I never used it but would suggest making a sample joint and testing it to destruction.

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Permalink Reply by Andrew on December 27, 2011 at 6:27pm

i used it for my scarphs and it is great.

I tested the joints with some strips i cut off when sizing the panels. The marine ply failed before the epoxy. Sounds like you got a good price too.

Andrew

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Permalink Reply by Greg Jensen on December 28, 2011 at 2:05pm

I have had the same results and am very happy with my scarph joints.

Thanks for all of the great advice all, please keep it up.

Greg

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