Thread: New guy, rookie question.

yeh plenty from WA here but more like West Australia than the WA (Washington) you was from . Don't let it put you off though as one of the guys that know more about this should be along soon to help you.
Pete

Jim includes a BOM in his plans, which has the amount of epoxy, amount and type of fabrics and other materials listed. If you are diligent about your efforts and don't encapsulate, you'll use about a quart. This would be unusual for a novice builder, who will "smoke" pots of goo and lather on way too much, as you learn the techniques, so figure on double this amount. If you encapsulate (highly recommended) you'll need about a gallon (total, resin and hardener combined).

Do yourself a big favor and download the free user's guides, from westsystem.com and systemthree.com. These will help you with the techniques, materials and methods employed with a taped seam build. It would also be wise to download (also free) the Gougeon brothers book "boat Building" from the West System site, which will offer more detail about the processes.

Of course these sites will focus on their products, but the techniques and materials can be used on any goo and purchased in lots of places, often much cheaper too.

Wot PAR said.
Also, don't skimp on being safe.

Read & follow the safety directions on whatever epoxy (or glues) you buy.
It ain't dramatically poisonous, but some folks develop severe allergy to uncured epoxy.
So avoid skin contact, avoid breathing vapours, don't use as a base for your martinis, etc.
(Cured epoxy is nearly totally inert, & safe for storing drinking water and for the kiddies, etc)

Same goes for wood dust from sanding.
Trees live slowly.
They can't fight infections by racing heaps of white blood cells to the rescue.
So all cells contain toxins.
You do not want to breathe that saw-dust or sanding dust.
Wear a dust mask, & work clean.

Take special care to make whatever you are doing fun, or at least interesting.

Lastly, make sure you post pics of your build here.
cheers

Thanks for the input. My plans are from Michalak's book, "Boatbuilding For Beginners and Beyond." While very informative and complete with many plans, my one complaint is that there isn't a materials list for anything. It took me a bit to visualize his plans enough to get an idea what to get. Glad to know he includes that info with his individual plans. I found his Jon JR online an I'm already planning that for project 2. The 16' in my book is just too big for my truck.

I'll check out those websites for epoxy techniques.