Laminating with epoxy

[SketchUp Guru]

The Poker Chip Holder thread reminded me of something that some may find interesting and useful.

A couple of years ago a fellow here in the US built a boat with a glass bottom. Most of the hull is fiberglassed plywood.

For those that aren't familiar with the process of fiberglssing over wood, you wet out the glass cloth with epoxy and make sure it is 'glued' down completely. After the first layer is mostly cured you work more epoxy into the low spots to fill the weave of the cloth. You continue building layers of epoxy and sanding to smooth until the texture of the cloth is gone.

John used a very interesting method to get a smooth surface that required no filling or sanding. IIRC he had to sand the surface to give it some tooth so that varnish would stick. I've attached a link to some images and also attached one of the pictures of the process. It might come in handy when laminating veneers if you want that smooth, hard surface. Epoxy isn't UV resistant so you need a coat or two of varnish over the epoxy but it makes a great table top surface.

http://www.pbase.com/dr_dichro/electric_boat
http://www.cabbs.org/Electric%20Launch.htm

By the way, there's some interesting woodworking shown, too.

 

[Chris Knight]

Dave,
Thanks for that interesting link. I often think to myself that one could do useful things with fibreglass and wood in furniture - as distinct from boat building - but I keep forgetting to try it!

 

[SketchUp Guru]

I frequently find myself choosing epoxy over other glues for many woodworking projects. It is extremely handy and because it can be mixed with various fillers it can be gap filling as well as a putty for filling holes. It is also nice because it doesn't require much clamping pressure and with the proper hardner has a fairly long open time.