Thread: Another OZ MK2 PDRacer build in Sydney "Wood Duck"

Hi Alex,

1. BoatCraft's new mixing pots . These are much nicer to use: thicker plastic, a bit easier to clean, and will be longer lasting than the previous types. Also, they have handy ratio markers with alternative hardener percentages. Most of the time I won't be getting anywhere near even the lowest 2:1 mark as I usually use far smaller amounts of resin; but the markings look nice

I'm mixing epoxy in tiny PVC (or polypropylene) used pots from yoghurt. I'm mixing 50 or 100 ml of epoxy resin at once (more than 100 ml of mixed epoxy can to do exotermic reaction and quick hardening inside pot).
Used pots after epoxy hardening landing in my garbage bag...

Originally Posted by robhosailor

I'm mixing epoxy in tiny PVC (or polypropylene) used pots from yoghurt. I'm mixing 50 or 100 ml of epoxy resin at once (more than 100 ml of mixed epoxy can to do exotermic reaction and quick hardening inside pot).
Used pots after epoxy hardening landing in my garbage bag...

:)

Hi Robert,

Small yoghurt containers sounds good, and you don't have to "buy" them - well, not specifically anyway ;). I would probably take your hint and use them, except that I've found that if I'm careful cleaning up, I can resue the containers up to around ten times each. With the new thicker variety, I'm hoping that I'll get a few more uses than that. Then again, I should be able to get a few uses out of the yoghurt containers, if they were cleaned up before the glue set ;). Thanks for the tip :).

Cheers,
Alex.

Maybe I've turned off viewing thumbnails by accident in my Flickr account, but I'm blowed if I can see where! It's making me somewhat cross! Means I'll have to caption before uploading unless I can fix it. Unless it's a Flickr problem...

Anyway, I got a bit of sanding done on the starboard tank panel (complete) and the starboard side-deck (two-thirds), in between bit of tidying and some more work on the dog-proof fence, plus cutting up some battens to finish hanging up a rug on the wall as a sound-damping device.

Tank panel and part of the side deck were started with the ROS and an 80-grit Bosch black:Stone disc: that has to be seen to be believed! I had to let the sander float to prevent it chewing too far into the resin. Green resin, at that. And no clogging of disc, either :)))). Because of the proximity of daughter and wife upstairs, I kept the ROS-ing to a minimum to cut down the noise - although later when asked whether it had been disturbing the Boss asked "what noise?" well, more or less ;). Anyway, having flattened the surfaces with the ROS, I fined them down to 240-grit in a few stages. Having flat objects to deal with helped a lot! The rest of the stbd side deck will get done tomorrow morning, and the stbd panel glued in position :). Well, that's the plan, anyway.

Hi AlexN,

For mixing the epoxy ( with or without modifying powders ) 2 litre used plastic ice cream containers work a treat - cost: free - just let any leftover mix set, and then flex the containers to release the hardened mix ( some scraping may be needed - but this works very easily, well over 10 times with each container ).

For measuring I use either a small cheap plastic measuring jug with decent graduated markings ( cost: about 2 Dollars - wipe out immediately after use with a paper towel or two, for each of, the resin, hardener, and modifying powder ), or for smaller amounts I use cheap plastic measuring spoons ( cost: about 3 Dollars - clean up as per the measuring jug method above ), so far I have only used 2 sizes out of the 4 in the set.

Originally Posted by dhgomm

Hi AlexN,

For mixing the epoxy ( with or without modifying powders ) 2 litre used plastic ice cream containers work a treat - cost: free - just let any leftover mix set, and then flex the containers to release the hardened mix ( some scraping may be needed - but this works very easily, well over 10 times with each container ). :2tsup:

For measuring I use either a small cheap plastic measuring jug with decent graduated markings ( cost: about 2 Dollars - wipe out immediately after use with a paper towel or two, for each of, the resin, hardener, and modifying powder ), or for smaller amounts I use cheap plastic measuring spoons ( cost: about 3 Dollars - clean up as per the measuring jug method above ), so far I have only used 2 sizes out of the 4 in the set. :D

Hi David,

I have quite a few 2 L ice cream containers which I use for washing (metal ;) parts after machining them (also for storing same under kero (paraffin if you're in the UK) if I'm not going to be using them for a while). For some reason I've never thought of using them to mix resin in - I don't know why. I would have to get some new ones as they are all in used. Unfortunately the brand of ice cream that we've been buying lately seems to have moved to a different type of plastic and shape, and I can't recall having seen the "old" type for a while. I'll have a harder look next time I'm doing the shopping. Even if it's strawberry-flavoured ;). Your measuring methods sound good, although I'll stick to my syringes, as I can get to around 1 mL or less. But usually 2 (+ 1) mL for small patch-up jobs/spotting.

The new resin which I ordered yesterday from BoatCraft just arrived on overnight delivery. I'm using the last of the clean 2 L ice cream containers to rinse the old A and B from the respective pumps all the 4 L containers are full of parts. Using meths to do the washing, not kero btw ;).

Cheers,
Alex.

Another milestone passed today - I glued on the starboard tank panel and filleted the bottom edge with the new filleting tool (see a previous post). The new resin that I'd ordered (non-yellowing hardener again) turned up promptly, thanks to Fastway couriers and BoatCraft Pacific :). The new stuff seem a lot more active - the glue that I mixed up certainly went off within the hour, although there was a large amount of it so that would have helped.

So, the first work block involved cleaning the old pumps - meths for the hardener and acetone for the resin - and then drying them out as much as possible. Also checked boat for square and still OK (and so it should have been with all the things locking it in place). Decided to shift it back towards the milling bench, however, as I kept staking myself in the back with the protruding "leglets" when trying to do things at the "blue" bench. On resetting the rear block that the boat rests against, checked the squareness again and decided to tweak it a bit with some plywood - and screwed that down so that it couldn't shift. Re-drew the panel bottom line onto the hull straight from the panel, then removed and sanded with 60-grit 19 mm to either side of line for glue keying, removed panel, cleaned up, and added blue tape mask on inside of tank.

Second work block was the actual glueing - mixed up quite a large quantity of glue to do the vertical supports and some of the fillet - not knowing quite how much I needed I decided to mix on the parsimonious side. Had enough for some decent 10 mm radius fillets on the vertical supports, and half of the 15 mm radius fillet at the bottom, as well as the vertical glueing areas. Hurriedly mixed up the next batch - same quantity again - with the original mix going off rapidly. Used all the second batch up completing the big fillet, and filling out it and the vertical fillets.

Having got all that done, did some initial clean-up with meths and paper towel, then whacked the sided deck on quickly, clamped it up and left it. Having left the camera in the car yesterday (the one which my wife drove to the station this morning of course ;), I had to wait until this evening to take some photos - some of which were don blind, poking the camera through the inspection port and relying on its autofocus to do the right thing (which it did :).

After dinner, took the side deck off, did another clean-up, faired some of the corners while there was still some give in the glue, and replaced the top and clamped, using a few more clams this time. The clamps will come off tomorrow evening - I'll take out the hull screws after lunch and do the outside (inboard) fillet and stern fillet.

Photos when I've sorted them out, etc. Looks as though Flickr has changed the coding of their site to something that Opera doesn't like - Flickr pages look fine in Safari, which means working in Safari until the Opera programmers catch up...

Sorted the Flickr problem: user error. I changed an Opera UI setting...

My photos are way out of synch again! Hopefully will fix that tomorrow. Today's work was rather fractured: filled in the three holes in hull bottom first, then sanded the port tank panel flat and smooth with 80- and 120-grit black discs followed by Sahara paper to 240-grit. Side deck gets attended to tomorrow.

Later in the day I removed the clamps, added the masks for the tank outer fillet, then added the fillet. Overestimated the amount of glue needed this time - by 100 %! Let the glue go off over dinner, then finished the clean-up with various sticks (chisel and filleting) and a meths-soaked paper towel. Photos after I've posted yesterday's panel-glueing episode.

Apart from (maybe) sanding the side-deck, I'll be doing the final clean-up of the starboard tank and triple-resin-coating the bare cleat surfaces including the uncoated oregon deck supports on F1 and CB), a sealing coat over all tank inner surfaces, then glueing the side deck down I won't be able to fillet the side deck in the tank ;). The latter couple of steps might have to be deferred till Friday or the weekend, unless I drop the deck-sanding.

Tuesday's photos in this post. Today's work involved sanding back the starboard tank main fillet (it developed a large ridge when I clamped the tank side to the deck carlin) thus reducing some weight; plus coating various uncoated parts of chinelogs plus cleats; and getting stuck into the port side deck underside's spots. The latter is now nice and smooth - and flat :). I didn't get the starboard side deck glued on, and I only got two coats on the chinelogs etc.: I'll whack another coat on tomorrow first thing - the resin should still be quite labile and reactive (to itself) even by then.

We appear to have a new member of the household - a scrub turkey! It had a built a respectable mound in our "front yard" this morning - and when I went out to pick up our daughter from school this afternoon, the wretched animal had scraped a further massive amount of leaf litter from further up the road, along the footpath, and into and up the drive, thence onto its now even-larger mound. It is a very handsome looking fowl, and no doubt some lucky female turkey will get the nice-looking mound (nice-looking for a turkey, that is!) - and even luckier us will get a nest of chicks. Ahem.

Photos from Tuesday:

1. Tank panel glued on three edges: first array of clamps, and prior to second clean-up





2. All the glue's on the inside- at the moment!





3. Almost no glue oozing from under the tank side, despite the pressure put on the fillet by the large, heavy-duty filleting stick






4. "Blind" view of starboard air tank prior to second clean-up: tape mask still in place. Photo taken by pointing the camera at the back of the tank and pressing the button. The camera's auto-focus was working nicely - an accidentally quite nice photo:)





5. Fillet just before clean-up: another "blind" - and this time rather fuzzy - photo





6. Tricky corner: two fillets meeting at 90 degrees: this was smoothed out when the top was taken off and the glue had gone sufficiently stiff that it didn't stick to the (gloved) fingers, but was still pliable enough to work - i.e., after dinner ;). The camera is actually pretty good at these "blind" photos" ;)





7. Inside of front end of side buoyancy tank: brand-new 10 mm radius fillet. Another "blind" photo...





8. View of main tank fillet from above. Side deck removed for the second clean-up (it was replaced as soon as the clean-up was done). Cleaning was mostly tape removal :), The ridge formed by clamping the top of the tank panel to the side deck (and being the nw shape being held by the glue going off) can just be seen to the left of the photo, if you look carefully





9. Rear of tank after clean-up and fairing off the corner: bottom fillet is 15 mm radius; vertical fillets are 10 mm radii





10. All done! Top of fillet and the bottom (left) corner cleaned up. "Grey" surface of F2 outer panel top cleat is not glue - it's clear packaging tape





11. Close-up of faired corner fillets: always that hole in the intersection! Ridge in middle of large (bottom) fillet - now no longer concave! - is quite visible here





12. Side tank after clean-up doesn't look any different from the other photo before the second clean-up ;). I have added some more clamps, having noticed that there was some slack between the tank side and the carlin





Yesterday's (Wednesday's) photos tomorrow!

It's not tomorrow! I decided to make a start on yesterday's photo log straight away. This one deals with the formation of the side tank external fillet (amongst other things)...

1. Side tank panel sanded smooth - and flat! No more fish-eye - until the next coat goes on ;). Well, hopefully not!





2. Close-up of sanded tank panel





3. Screw holes plugged with HS-glue mix, a few hours before the bottom-edge fillet was installed. Pencil marks are locators for where the fillet edges will fall (based on the filleting stick) - I didn't want the masks too close to the fillet - or too far away either. At any rate, clean-up was minimal :)





4. Big bag o' glue! The Storer/Duck Flat method of applying glue only where it's needed :)





5. External side tank glue fillet - start of run. I mixed rather too much glue - probably two times too much again than was needed...





6. Trundling along the fillet-run. The tank panel was given a priming coat of clear resin before the glue was mixed, to give it a good length of time to soak into the upper plywood layer





7. Glue squeezed into its concave shape using my large, heavy-duty (plywood) filleting stick. Most of the excess has ended up on the top tape mask (hull bottom is the pale-coloured region)





8. Another photo of the fillet. I've had a lot of practice forming fillets!





9. Bit of a mess! I allowed the glue to go off quite a bit before shaping this corner (see next photo)





10. Close-up of forward part of external tank fillet. This junction needs to seal 100 %. Well, it all does, really... This fillet will get a larger overlay later on when I'm tidying up the cockpit and prior to the final resin coat





11. The other (aft) end of same fillet: another critical junction. This one also will get another larger (10 mm radius) fillet over the top in due course...





12. Side tank with lots of clamps - and an external fillet!





Next lot of photos will deal with the cleaning up of the internal fillet, resin-coating, and sanding the side deck flat. Down with spots! Well, down with fish-eye, to be more accurate!

Yesterday's photos today! Tomorrow's photos yesterday! Ho ho...

This lot mainly concerns tweaks to the side tank (internal) structural fillet: the removal of the ridge that developed when the tank panel was clamped to the carlin and the fillet was consequently squeezed between the panel and the hull bottom.

1. Side tank structural fillet ridge (the dull strip running along the fillet) being sanded off. The ridge was only on the LH side of the fillet, and was sanded to match the concave shape of the RH side using a scrap of 60-grit paper. Wasn't too hard - just needed patience and persistence...





2. Sanded and re-shaped tank fillet. The uncoated cleats have also been given their first coat of 2:1 BoteCote - from the new batch :)





3. RH part of fillet - also sanded, but not as much as the LH side!





4. Middle of fillet - difference between the ridged and concave sides no longer exists :)





5. Tank fillet given a coat of resin following its reshaping, to make up for being attacked by some sand-paper...





6. This isn't a false-color IR image of distant galactic superclusters, although it might be ;). Also looks a bit like the skin of a whale shark. Or maybe a bit from the "Second Doctor" Doctor Who title sequence... It's actually the side deck under-surface after a bit of ROS-ing with the 80-grit black disc, to get the spots down (down with spots!)





7. Same panel after 80-grit sanding complete. 120-grit disc and 180- and 240-grit paper passes followed, then clean-up up with vacuum and meths. Flattened spots are particularly evident in left and top right parts of photo





Today has been focussed on finishing off the resin-coating of bare timber in the starboard side tank, adding a few fillets that I had for some inexplicable reason overlooked and some clean-up of the starboard side deck. My intention is to put the final clear sealing coat on the tank, the side deck and glue the deck on - either later this arvo or this evening. I'll then start on glueing in the port tank panel - most likely tomorrow.

Whew! Got the tank coated top to bottom (including side deck component) and side deck glued in place this evening. What a job! One down, one to go. No photos, as there's basically nothing to see that hasn't already appeared here, and I was too busy! I'll check the inside of the tank tomorrow and see how the glue/resin "auto-filleting" around the top edge went. Should have been OK, as the glue was squeezing out evenly on the outside.

Alex!

I can see many of beautifully prepared details here!!!

Good work!

Me too!

Hi Robert and MIK,

You are both far too kind. Wait until you see the mess that I made of the inside of the starboard tank - you will change your minds! Photos tomorrow...

While the inside of the tank isn't visible, its finish has unfortunate implications for the final resin coat that I was intending to coat the cockpit with before varnishing. I am either going to have to seriously rethink this, or be prepared for at least two coats and weeks and weeks of sanding.

If I sound a bit glum, it's because I am.