First epoxy gluing on Tern

This morning (Jan 8, 2005) I started the first epoxy work on the Tern14. I laid out half of the panels, clamped them in place using an assortment of finishing nails, bricks and clamps, and applied the epoxy and fibreglass for the butt joints.
I decided to use some fast cure hardener for this step because the temperature is pretty cold. In fact, the cool temp this morning (6C) made it kind of difficult to apply the epoxy and I quickly ran into my first “issue”. The low temp made the epoxy quite thick for spreading despite the fact that I kept the epoxy in our house until going out to the garage. The result was that I ended up applying too much epoxy to the joints such that the excess squeezed out over top of the mylar. A small amount of epoxy is supposed to squeeze out, but I had too much. With some epoxy leaking over top of the mylar, it will become a little bit difficult to remove the mylar. Not only that, but it got messier than it needed to. Please see the attached album for some more details.

Today I purchased a space heater for the garage. Tomorrow night I plan on doing the reverse side of these joints, and I’ll heat the garage for the epoxy application.