Jack’s Fast Filleting Tool

By Tom Pawlak — GBI Technical Advisor

Epoxy fillets are important for reinforcing the long joints between bulkheads and hulls or decks. My friend Jack Anderson showed me how to modify one of our inexpensive 808 Plastic Spreaders make to apply neat fillets in one quick pass.

Trim one end of a squeegee to form a 75° angle. Trim the 75° angle corner to the desired fillet radius. Make both cuts clean and smooth.

To make fast, smooth fillets with this tool:

1. Apply a generous amount of thickened epoxy to the joint—enough so you don’t have to re-apply it.
2. Place the modified squeegee into the epoxy at the beginning of the joint. Lean it forward until one edge touches the hull and the other touches the bulkhead.
3. Pull the tool forward along the joint, keeping both edges in contact. This scrapes the excess epoxy ahead of the spreader much the same as a snowplow pushes snow in front of it. Pull the tool along the entire joint until your fillet is complete. If there are gaps along the fillet, apply more thickened epoxy to those areas and again draw the tool along the joint. If you’ve applied enough epoxy, your fillet will look smooth and uniform in one pass.