As stated before, the next step was to fiberglass the canoe, so I decided to make a post about how I mixed the epoxy resin. I know that from the preliminary setup I said I was going to buy West System, but after talking with my advisor, I learned that US Composites was a much cheaper and even better product. It was a better product because it could be handled without gloves or respirator mask, not to mention that it more user friendly for novice fiberglassers like myself. Buying the 2 gallons of 635 Thin Epoxy Resin Sytem kit which included 85 oz. of 3:1 Medium Epoxy Hardener, I thought a 3:1 ratio would be the best because it does not dry too slow or too fast. Also I bought a 25 pack of 5 in. squeegees, which were life savers, 2 mini pumps, and 20 yards of 4 oz. Fiberglass. Usually cedar strip canoes are glassed with 6 oz. cloth, but my advisor said that using 4 oz. cloth is much easier to work with than the heavier 6 oz. Also, I bought a 36 pack of 2 in. brushes from Harbor Freight Tools. These were the all the materials that I bought, and yes I did buy extras. The actual mixing of the epoxy was quite simple. The first step was to measure the weight of the cup or container. I used a Fage Yogurt Container. Then place the scale on how much 635 epoxy you want (around 300g -400g) After pouring in the epoxy, it is important to remeasure the scales to determine how much you actually have. Subtracting the cup weight from the total sum and dividing by three, that is how much hardener you need to add. Adding the hardener amount to the cup and epoxy, not just epoxy, you need to place the scales at that weight. After everything is poured in, it needs to be mixed with a drill. I used an electric drill and a mixer my neighbor gave me. With the epoxy and hardener mixed, I could now pour it onto the canoe.
After the blog post about how to mix the epoxy for fiberglassing, it is time to post about the actual fiberglassing. The process is actually quite simple, seeing that I read so much about it that I was so nervous. But my neighbor was there to help me apply my first coat and he assured me that it was not that complicated. The night before I had clean the canoe surface with a cloth and had blown out the entire area around the canoe with a pneumatic blower. Before fiberglassing, I thought sanding would never end and I thought of giving up the whole project all together, because of the monotony of it, yet the fun of fiberglass totally made up for it. First, I laid out the 4 oz. cloth and wet it out with the mixture of epoxy and hardener. After 24 hours, when this dried I did it again. So now I had 8 ounces of cloth all the way around the entire canoe. However, after each cloth dried, the excess had to be cut off with a knife or scissors (which ever was more accessible.) The bottom picture is the canoe after two coats of epoxy. I laid 6 oz. Fiberglass tape on the stems to ensure strength and the tape needs a couple more coats to fully wet out. But in all this step was a lot of fun because you could see the beauty of the colors become very vibrant, when you were so used to seeing whitish sanded wood. The next step is to sand the fiberglass to ensure that it is smooth throughout...
