Glen-L.com

Heating Poxy Grip still does not make it thin enough to apply with a roller and with the cold air in my northern garage loft, even painting on with a small brush takes quite a lot of time and effort....especially when gluiing the sheers laminates.

Is it necessary to coat both sheer laminations before clamping together or is it sufficient to apply to one side only? This is probably a pretty stupid question, but coating both sides will take far too long and use more glue than I can comfortably mix up at one time.

Poxy-Grip is a pre-thickened epoxy, so its not suitable for roller application. Poxy-Shield is unthickened and can be roller applied easily, provided its not too cold (same as any other epoxy brand).

The reason I coat both sides is to ensure I don't get any voids in the bond after the wood soaks up a % of the epoxy I applied. For example, when I am coating some douglas fir with epoxy, it soaks up the 1st application so quickly there is little left on the surface. The absorption amount will vary by wood species & dryness of the wood, so one way to avoid having an internal void after bonding in to pre-coat to both surfaces before putting them together to bond.

My suggestion is to get some unthickened epoxy to do the sheers and long laminations. You will need unthickend in the long run (encapsulation/fiberglassing) and you can use up the Poxy-Grip on your framing bonds instead.

If that is not an option, then you can probably get away with coating 1 side only as the layer will be pretty thick with Poxy-Grip that soaking/starvation will probably not be a problem.

Makes sense?

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Ian (aka Iggy)
My Malahini Build

IF you dont want to wait for some poxy-shield to arrive in the mail. I installed my sheer and chine in laminations with poxy-grip. I only applied to one side, there was lots of excess still that oozed all over so have a drop cloth underneath. I worked in halves. First glued and clamped the front half then mixed more epoxy and removed the last two clamps to ensure I coated every spot and then glued and clamped the rear half. I applied it with everything I could find, tongue depressors, little cheap rollers to sorta roll it out, helps to have two people.

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My Zip build log...
http://www.vupilot.blogspot.com
http://picasaweb.google.com/vupilot/Chr ... O0x7SvsQE#

"Nothing screams poor craftsmanship like wrinkles in your duct tape."

You have both answered my question with excellent solutions.

For expediency, I will take vupilot's suggestion. I also just re-read the Glen-L Epoxy System Technical Manual (which I should have done BEFORE I posted this question) and I now see that it states that Poxy-Grip "need be applied to only one of the mating surfaces".