Filling Holes

For my next step, I decided to fill the wire holes on the outside prior to flipping the boat back over. I used this as an opportunity to experiment with the fillet mixture. I had asked for advice on the CLC web forum. The consensus seemed to be 90% wood flour, 10% silica. My latest mixture was 2 pumps of resin and hardener, 5 spoonfuls of wood flour, 1 spoonful of silica and 1 spoonful of West microlight. The texture was a little smoother than pure wood flour, but still not what I'd call silky smooth. The color, however, seems to be a pretty good match for epoxy coated okume. I'll wait for it to dry before comparing and taking photos.

For filling the holes, I used a sample spoon a local gelato shop gives out. It was basically a minature teaspoon. I was the perfect shape and size to fill the holes. For scraping the excess epoxy away I used another gelato spoon, this one had a flat front, like a coal shovel. I was able to scrape around the holes pretty well. Hopefully, it won't require much sanding.


I had a little time left over, so I glued together two plywood pieces to form the laminated skeg. I mixed up some unthinned epoxy and coated the surfaces to be glued. I then added silica until it was "mustard" consistancy. I added the thickened goop to one side and clamped them together on top of my newpaper covered workbench. What a mess! I need to get some polyethylene plastic film before I do any more of this.