Here’s how to mix those small batches
Issue 58 : Jan/Feb 2008
Many good old boaters use epoxy for a variety of small repairs. Small repairs require small epoxy batches. In my life, whether I’m repairing boats or building them from scratch, I mix far more small epoxy batches than big ones.
If most of your epoxy batches are small, you may find it difficult to get consistent mixes. If you’re not coming out even at the end of a jug of resin and a jug of hardener, you know something’s been wrong along the line.
Some epoxy manufacturers recommend pump dispensers. Others give you proportions by volume and let you figure it out from there. For those tiny batches needed to glue a small object or fill a bolthole, I find it hard to trust pumps, especially old pumps.
Cooks know how to mix anything you can think of in proportions by volume. They use measuring spoons. The same system works for epoxy.
Get plastic measuring spoons. Almost all of them are made of polyethylene, one of the slickest substances on earth. Whether your epoxy brand of choice requires a two-to-one ratio, a five-to-two ratio, or any other ratio by volume, you can get it by counting spoonfuls.
Resin before hardener
There are a few tricks to make measuring epoxy with spoons work better. First, measure the resin before the hardener. Since there is always more resin than hardener, this will reduce the likelihood that your epoxy might begin to set up on the surface of your spoon while you’re working.
Second, scrape the spoon carefully between spoonfuls, and clean the scraping stick off on the edge of your mixing vessel each time. You want all the epoxy you have measured to wind up in your mix.
Finally, after you’ve transferred all your epoxy resin and hardener to the mixing vessel, take a paper towel and thoroughly wipe and dry your measuring spoon. Do this even before you stir the epoxy. Since the polyethylene is so slick, a dry paper towel will remove the residue. Your measuring spoons can last as long in your workshop as Mom’s did in her kitchen.
If your chosen brand of epoxy requires a two-to-one ratio, as System Three epoxy does, you can often eliminate the “counting spoonfuls” step by using quarter and half teaspoons, or half and whole teaspoons. However, it takes three teaspoonfuls to make a tablespoonful, so the system breaks down there.
Dixie or Lily paper cups, the ones about the size of a shot glass, make ideal vessels for mixing small quantities of epoxy. I clean up my spoons and sticks for re-use, but I throw away my Dixie cups.
Jeff McFadden and Gloria Rae live, farm, and sail about as far from one ocean as the other — and slightly closer to the Great Lakes than to the Gulf of Mexico — but not much. Jeff builds small boats and Gloria takes pictures of them. They are looking for a good old boat to convert to a junk rig.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
