Fillet? what to use?

Spent a few days with the boat up in Montana and Wyoming and noticed a pretty sizable bubble in the plywood floor on the inside.  Got home and took a chisel to it and peeled off the top layer of my 3 ply 3/8" plywood about 1-1/2" wide and 4" long.  Now I need to clean up and fill it in.  I've read about fillet a little on here and thought I'd pose the question of what exactly is fillet?  Is it epoxy and sawdust or some such combination like that?  I just looked up EZ fillet online and was wondering if that is what I should use for this repair?  Also if I should start digging into my floor where a couple previous cracks occured and fillet them before they start to rot.  The boats gonna sit out in the weather most of the summer so I might want to start thinking about coating the entire inside bottom with something in time.  It's a little depressing taking a chisel to your boat floor and starting the patching a couple months after it's christening.

 

Thanks-Mark

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Permalink Reply by mitchell on June 10, 2010 at 7:56am
Mark,

welcome to the back-fill club. Yes, I'd say fill your cracks to avoid rot. If the cracks are fine cracks you might not need to add the sawdust to your epoxy but that gouge sure does.

I have no worries anymore about back-filling. It's saved me many times.
Permalink Reply by Jonathan Clarke on June 10, 2010 at 9:06am
I've just had my first experience with EZ fillet. It's easy to work with and seems very strong.
Permalink Reply by Randy Dersham on June 13, 2010 at 10:59am
EZ Fillet is a great product. Simple to mix and works great. I recommend it. It will be dark brown fill on your golden floor.

When it is time for you to cover up the dings on the bottom I recommend Durabak-18. We use it on all of our boats for the inside floor. Greg Hatten just did a bottom repair and used the black Durabak-18. You can send hm a note to ask how it's holding up for him.
Permalink Reply by Jeff Peak on June 13, 2010 at 1:39pm
Specifically, a fillet is the concave "bead" of thickened epoxy that reinforces interior corners of glue joints in stitch and glue construction, primarily where the sides of our boats meet the floor...more generally, "fillet material" is any gooey crap that will fill a void.

I used Raka epoxy, and different mixes of silica (to make strong glue), glass bubbles (easily sand-able), and cotton fibers (as a thickener). When I ran out of cotton and glass bubbles i used the finest sawdust I could find to mix in with the epoxy. I've heard lint from the clothes dryer works well, never tried...
Permalink Reply by Kelly Neu on June 13, 2010 at 3:46pm
Hey Mark,

Just wanted to add, that when you're shopping for fillet material, make sure to find the stuff that is specific for your job. There are "structural" fillets and "decorative" fillets.

For joints that will be under high stress (chine, bulkheads, etc...) I use a fillet mix of epoxy, coarse wood flour, fine wood flour, chopped glass fibers and silica.

For joints that just need to look nice I use epoxy and phenolic microballoons or the EZ fillet.

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