Tag Archives: Epoxyworks #26

Fifty Plus, a Quiet Times powerboat

Building the Fifty Plus

by Grace Ombry
Epoxyworks 26

Cover Photo: Carl Puehl’s FIFTY PLUS, a modification of the Ted Brewer design, Quite Times.

A 37′ powerboat is a bit of a luxury for a self-employed handyman and jack-of-all-trades like Carl Puehl. But he’d always wanted to build a boat, and he decided to fill the gap between what he wanted and what he could afford. Continue reading

Summer in the City

The MOMA Beatfuse project

All of the seams on the MOMA Beatfuse pool bottom were sealed using 3″ cloth tape and three coats of epoxy.

by Jerry Briggs

Each year The Museum of Modern Art and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center conducts what is known as the P.S.1 / MOMA Young Architects Program. The competitors vie for the opportunity to build a temporary architectural project in the 17,000 square foot outdoor galleries of P.S.1 in Queens, New York. The structure serves as a venue for the popular outdoor music series, “Warm Up” which runs from June through September each year and boasts attendance in excess of 100,000 visitors per season. Continue reading

A tapered tube section joined to a curved section.

Building Composite Tubes

With WEST SYSTEM and braided fibers

by Captain James R. Watson

Above: A tapered composite tube section joined to a curved section.

Composite tubes are used on boats for hardtops, T-tops, Biminis, dodgers, bows, bow and stern pulpits, rails, canoe, and kayak paddle shafts, boat hooks, and so on. Composite tubes built with epoxy and reinforcing fibers offer advantages over metal in terms of lightweight, custom shapes and sizes, and corrosion resistance.

Continue reading

Storm the Castle

Building a Trebuchet

by Tom Pawlak — GBI Technical Advisor

Above: Robbie loads the trebuchet for another practice shot before the competition.

A while back, my nephew Robbie, about 15 years old at the time, asked for help building a trebuchet (a form of catapult) for an upcoming Science Olympiad competition that his school was involved in. He had located a nice set of plans online that were based on a lattice-type structure using hardwoods. The website offered a fairly detailed plan and included project photos to help during the build. Continue reading

1. The metal surrounding the lawn mower wheel had corroded and was too weak to keep the wheel from flopping against the deck

Quick Lawn Mower Repair

by Tom Pawlak — GBI Technical Advisor

I hesitated to write this article about repairing my old lawn mower because my friends accuse me of being a cheapskate. The text and photos to follow will only strengthen their argument. That being said, I can’t be the only person who would prefer to fix something rather than buy new. Besides, I can’t resist the opportunity to experiment with WEST SYSTEM® epoxy. Continue reading

This joint style in an edge-glued, 1/8" thick HDPE strip holds tight when deflected and is great for gluing plastics.

Gluing Plastics with G/flex Epoxy

by Tom Pawlak — GBI Technical Advisor &  Jeff Wright — Vice President of Technical Services

Above: This joint style in an edge-glued, 1/8″ thick HDPE plastic strip which holds tight when deflected and is a good choice when gluing plastics.

One of our goals for G/flex® was the ability to bond to a variety of plastics. This was an ambitious goal because plastics historically have been used as mold release surfaces for epoxy, allowing the epoxy to release from the plastic when cured. While developing G/flex, we tested adhesion to a number of plastics with a variety of surface prep methods. Continue reading

Royalex Canoe Repair with G/flex Epoxy

By Bruce Newell and Stan Bradshaw

Above: Stan and Glenda Bradshaw in the Mad River Freedom 16′ Royalex canoe repaired with G/flex Epoxy in August 2007 on the Blackfoot River near Ovando, Montana a couple of miles downstream of the Roundup Bar.

The wooden gunwales of Royalex canoes can rip a hull apart if left out in bitter cold temperatures. Somewhere south of freezing, the plastic body of the canoe shrinks while the dampish wooden gunwales expand. Unless the screws affixing the inwale and outwale are backed out, they pin a shrinking hull to an expanding gunwale, and something will give. That something is always the hull. Continue reading

D-Ring Pads and G/flex Epoxy

by Tom Pawlak — GBI Technical Advisor

New Possibilities for HDPE Boats

D-ring pads are often attached to flexible surfaces with urethane adhesives to gain load-carrying capacity where there otherwise wouldn’t be any. They are used on waterproof fabric cargo bags, heavy tarpaulins, and inflatable boats. They are also sometimes used on the decks of canoes and kayaks to hold cargo in place on long trips. D-rings are not typically used on polyethylene canoes and kayaks because the urethane glues are not recommended for use on HDPE (high-density polyethylene) plastic. We experimented with gluing D-ring pads with G/flex 655 Thickened Epoxy Adhesive to HDPE plastic with that end-use in mind. Continue reading

2. I brushed WEST SYSTEM® 105/206 onto both surfaces and fit the joint together.

Upright Bass Repair

by Bruce Niederer — GBI Technical Advisor

Above: I brushed WEST SYSTEM® 105/206 onto both of the upright bass’s repair surfaces and fit the joint together.

Just by luck, I was in the right place at the right time to purchase an old upright bass from the local school system for $50 because, sadly, the orchestra (stringed instruments) program was being discontinued. The bass needed strings and a new peg but was in decent shape—until I got my hands on it! As it was standing in the corner of my room patiently waiting for me to get to it, a gust of wind got there first, knocking it down and breaking the neck at the heel. Continue reading