The last couple of days we have added two layers of 9 oz glass twill set in epoxy.
Prior to this step we had spent several hours adding fairing material to the rough shaped foam.
Additional fairing will be needed after the cloth work is finished but these coats will be much thinner.
To get to this point we were adding serious amounts of fairing material to match the shapes of the pontoons.
In past projects I used Aerosil. This is the brand name of a colloidal silica product. I purchased a large volume of it and used it for fairing, structural bonding and fillets. It is not best suited for fairing because it is harder than proper sanding additives.
Because this project was going to require a large amount of fairing, we ordered a big quantity of
phenolic micro balloons from Raka Supply in Florida.
I love this stuff. Colloidal silica is super light and gets airborne very easily. A respirator is mandatory and the stuff feels weird if you get it on you. It is also hard to mix into epoxy.
The micro balloons almost absorbs the epoxy like a sponge. It also doesn't go airborne, but is also feels weird.
Here are some photos of these steps...
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| phenolic micro balloons |
