2010-04-03

Preparation for gluing a board to my head and having to to go the hospital

This is part right before the rubber hits the road; it hits the fan; go time.  If I don't prepare properly and have all my actions rehearsed, I will time out on the "pot life" of the epoxy and epic fail.  The pot life is listed by the manufacturer as 20-25 minutes at 80F, but my work area is in a basement at 62F which should give me some extra time.



I first cut the fiberglass fabric into strips bigger than my basswood sheets.  The cloth is 38" wide compared to my 36" long sheets, so that's convenient.  Above I've placed a basswood sheet on the cloth for reference, scored that faint line to the right of the sheet with the utility knife, and am about to cut along that line with those heavy duty shop shears.  The cutting goes fairly easily.


Now I've got 14 sheets of 8.9oz fiberglass cloth in a stack, nearly ready to pull from.  My hands will be gloved and glopped with epoxy so I will stack them in such a way that each piece hangs off the edge of the last by about an inch.  This stuff does not have a lot of diagonal dimensional stability, so I'm not at all sure I've cut along the exact line of the weave in each case.  Don't care, I think.

Tomorrow.  Powerful glue.  Me.  Adventures.  A race against the clock.  I've decided to just go and do the thing, no practice layup.

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