Ding filler

 I started filling some of the holes yesterday which was an interesting learning experience. First time using resin and qcell and it was a lot less straightforward than I had anticipated. 

I started by mixing some qcell into a resin/hardener mixture at around 5:00 (thanks jetlag). Doing it that early in the morning meant the temps were kind of low, around 55-60 degrees in the booth. The mixture was pretty thick but definitely liquid-y still and so when I poured it into the voids it was filling it was a mission to keep it from pouring off and leaving the hole open. I had to build up the take mold considerably more than expected and it was still not really perfect. The learning for next time is to really reinforce and shape the area to protect from run off - it's easy to sand qcell down. 

Anyway it turned out that the hardener took a long time to kick in, much longer than it should have. I followed instructions to a tee so was a bit confused as to why it wasn’t hardening up sooner but I guess the instructions need to be adjusted at the low amounts I’m using.

The mixture took many hours to harden but eventually it did and I was left with new material to work with which was a lot of fun. I sanded the qcell down to the shape of the board and got rid of those gaping holes in the rails and deck. It was so satisfying being able to match the contours of the original shape. It’s a must to hand shape the rails once you get close, you can really feel the board that way. The tricky part is sanding enough to match the shape but also leave a couple of mms room for the glass to sit on top. You want to make sure that after glassing you can sand down to make everything flush without just eating away at your new glass. 

Cured q-cell pre-sanding

I taped off wide areas around the Qcell so I could sand with long strokes to match the shape of the board.

Once the qcell was sanded down I cut some 6oz fiberglass cloth into patches for the dings on the bottom - figured I’d start with the flat area first to get a handle on how to glass. 

The application was pretty easy though I used more resin than I thought which was interesting. The resin hardening issue happened again despite the fact that I had set up a space heater to warm the booth up to 77 degs ... I think that I need to increase the hardener by 50% at those low numbers which is frustrating as I hate to deviate from instructions when working with chemicals. 

Once applied, I left it to cure overnight - I’ll report back once I go check things out