By Michael Huffman
A couple of years ago, I noticed that the bottom member of the double-hung window in my office dormer had begun to rot.
Knowing it would be difficult to buy a matching replacement, I decided to repair the window using WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy and fiberglass. Continue reading
By Jeff Wright – GBI VP of Technical Services
At Gougeon Brothers, Inc. we are always measuring the ultimate strength of our epoxy products, their adhesive strength, and the strength of the resulting composite laminates (The values measured are often impressive, and the numbers for real-world applications may seem unbelievable). For example, the tensile strength on our Technical Datasheet (TDS) for 105 Epoxy Resin® and 205 Fast Hardener® is 7,900 psi. This means I could easily hang my Chevrolet® Silverado with a full payload using a 1″ x 1″ casting of epoxy! This is true in a perfect application, but our common sense tells us that it is risky. That common sense may be because we understand the need for a safety factor (Sf) in our calculations. Continue reading
By James Thomas
After a long time in the planning stage, my son Adam and I began work on a tiny house in 2022. While it was possible to purchase small, modular shower pans and enclosures, small soaking tubs were virtually impossible to find. I’ve built several small boats using wood and WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy, so it occurred to me that building a small tub might be possible.
By James Powers
Shortly after bringing Babka home, James and his wife decided she deserved a sturdy and handsome dog house to protect her from snow and rain.
Craig Bjarnason built an 8‘ dinghy. It is a cold molded, cedar hull with mahogany keelson seats and transom. All the laminating was done with thickened WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy. The hull was sheathed with 6 oz. fiberglass/epoxy on the outside and was epoxy coated on the inside. This boat is used as a tender for our 34‘ cold molded cutter on Lake of the Woods (Kenora, Ontario). It was also built using WEST SYSTEM Epoxy.
Take a look at some of the other awesome Readers’ Projects our fans sent in!
By Jenessa Hilger – GBI Marketing
The weekend before our wedding, my husband and I bought our S2 7.9 meter sailboat. She was exactly what we were looking for, a trailerable racer/cruiser that was a diamond in the rough. Over the past nine years, we’ve made many improvements, the latest of which was building a custom fiberglass and carbon fiber rudder support, or as I nicknamed it, a rudder hook. Read on to see how (and why) we made it.
By Don Gutzmer – GBI Technical Advisor
Taking inspiration from charcuterie boards, I decided to craft a decorative wooden board for my kitchen. What else do you do when you have 154 sample size specimens of wood laying around?
By Rachael Geerts – GBI Composite Materials Engineer
Have you ever wondered how laminate thickness can be determined without breaking out the epoxy and reinforcement fabric? The answer is simple—use math. While some of you may have just lost interest because you think math is too difficult, I can assure you that this math requires nothing more than some basic multiplication, addition, and division. Let’s get to it.
By Terry Monville – GBI Technical Advisor
Knowing how much epoxy you will need for a project before you start will save time, money, and frustration. Luckily, it is fairly simple to get a ballpark idea of how much epoxy your project will require before you start mixing.
Jacques Coon’s Drift Boat Build By Josh Coon
After seeing the clean lines and flowing curves of a Jason Cajune drift boat near Yellowstone River in the summer of 2018, Jacques Coon excitedly agreed to lead a build six months into the pandemic lockdown with his son and grandson. Read on and drift away...