Any economical fillet solutions?

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Any economical fillet solutions?

Postby marcusg » Mon Oct 26, 2020 11:18 pm

So my Daysailer knock-off has these things I call "footboards" on the frontside of each bench seat that protect water from getting into the foam under the benches. I'm replacing the boards (among other things) and will need to re-fillet them on the top to the bench and on the bottom to the floor.

All well and good, order a quick pint of fillet from System Three. Until I looked at their coverage chart and did the math...8' length, times two per board, times two for two boards = 32' linear feet, and the coverage for their EZ Fillet is *at most* 4 oz. per foot...so at least a gallon. Which runs $200. To glue some damn boards back on...

Watched some videos, however, and from what I gather that EZ Fillet stuff is vastly overpriced, since filleting mixture is mostly wood flour (and maybe a bit of silica,) and wood flour is way cheaper than epoxy. I can't, however, find a reliable recipe (and I suspect System Three tech support won't help me, though I have sent them a note,) so I figured I'd ask here.

The best I could find was 2 - 2.5x the amount of filler material per epoxy, but I don't know if that's by volume or weight. I assume volume. In my Google blitzkreig I also think I saw something about "thicken first with silica to mayonaise consistency, then add wood filler to reach peanut butter consistency."

If anybody knows a cheaper solution than S3's $200 (West, DIY, etc.) let me know.
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Re: Any economical fillet solutions?

Postby tomodda » Tue Oct 27, 2020 9:27 am

So, let me get this straight, these boards just sit on the "front" face of the benches (actually inner faces, I suppose)? Not structural, you just want to seal the joint between the boards and teh fiberglass? If that's what you have, I see two possible solutions:

-TotalBoat Thixo: It's cheaper than System 3, not a lot cheaper, but look what they charge for a 6-pack. A good part of the price on these cartridges is the mixing tip, and TotalBoat doesn't rip you off as much as S3.

-Tape both sides of each joint, using scotch tape, and you should probably do this anyway if you're going with a cartridge. Then glop on thickened epoxy and smooth a filet with a popsicle stick.

Now, the crux of your question is really what to use for thickened epoxy. Assuming that you don't have a can of epoxy and hardener lying around, I'd go with BIgBox store J.B. Weld. Moderate quantities of it are cheap, it sets reasonably well, I wouldn't trust it for anything structural. Mix it with wood flour (aka fine sawdust, I get plenty of it from my sander) to a peanut-butter consistency and you're good to go. The other nice thing about JB Weld is that you can buy just a small tube for $5-6 and experiment. You're going to have to juggle how runny the mix is vs how workable. This because of sag, you're applying it to a vertical surface. Two ideas - Careen the boat, make it a horizontal surface, easier to work with... or, but scotch tape over the fillets as soon as you lay them down, then tear the tape off after. Anyway, experiment with the cheaper tubes.

Best,

Tom
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Re: Any economical fillet solutions?

Postby GreenLake » Wed Oct 28, 2020 12:12 am

I was assuming you would do a "fillet" on the outside (facing the cockpit) side of these, and then run a strip of glass, perhaps. For a really solid connection. I don't see where you'd need to fillet both inside and outside.

Let's check their assumptions for a fillet coverage. If you do a 1x1" fillet on a diagonal, you have 1/2 sqi profile times ~100" in length, of 50 cubic inch, 100 cu ii for two floorboards, outer side only. Now, if your fillet is "hollow" you have 1/3 sqi instead of 1/2, so 66 cu in. That's a bit over a quart. So, the 1.5qt package would be what you need for a very minimal, one sided fillet, one that is just about what you would get if you used the round end of a tongue depressor to form it. (They assume 7 cu in / foot, which is more than 1/2 sq" in profile - needed perhaps for a structural bulkhead but not, I think for this application)

You can price what it would cost to mix your own from some laminating epoxy and wood flour. Might be a bit cheaper and might allow you to combine the use of laminating epoxy so you can get an uneven quantity for each.

You can find S3 stuff on amazon listed for cheaper than on the S3 site, also might check boat stores that sell online, like https://fisheriesssuply.com

I wouldn't use JB Weld.
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
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Re: Any economical fillet solutions?

Postby tomodda » Wed Oct 28, 2020 4:25 am

He wanted cheap, hence my suggestion. Agreed that "real" epoxy would be better.
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Re: Any economical fillet solutions?

Postby marcusg » Wed Oct 28, 2020 10:39 am

Thanks for doing the math Greenlake. Their 4 oz. per foot seemed super suspect.

That being said, I think I like Tom's thixo solution best. It's basically the same as the Gelmagic tubes I have (which I have an extra one anyways) so I know how easy it is to control. And as much as I love learning about all these disparate aspects of boat restoration, it looks like I'll only have a two week window that is fast approaching to work on the boat in the next 5-6 months, and I'd like to keep something as basic as attaching the "footboards" as simple as possible. 4 tubes of Thixo is also cheaper than the EZ Fillet for what I need, since I need to do two eight foot fillets per footboard, since they were filleted at the top where they attached to the bench, as well as at the bottom where they attach to the floor.

$80 worth of Thixo isn't that much cheaper than the 3 quarts of EZ-fillet it'd supposedly take me ($100,) but I'll have my extra tube or Gelmagic to fill in, and I'm more confident I can just squirt the stuff in than mess around with plastic baggies and what diameter hole I need and then won't get hung up stall out my big two week winter push. (Plus I've got my 1.5 pints of EZ fillet to play with if I run out of everything else.)

As unimportant as they seem, the footboards are a major limiting factor in my ability to apply the Gelcoat to the bilge, considering that I'm sealing the wooden footboards, I need to decide to either finish the footboards first and fillet them into the bilge/bench, or gelcoat the bilge first and cut the footboards to fit between the now slightly-higher bilge and bench ledge. Fun fun! Back to the other thread...
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Re: Any economical fillet solutions?

Postby GreenLake » Wed Oct 28, 2020 9:15 pm

Sometimes it takes looking at the boat in front of you to come up with the correct choice. While it's fun to try remote diagnostic, there are some real limitations, and I'm sure there's a good probability that I might even change my own suggestions had I had a chance to see your boat. (Happens even when I plan something on my boat and just look again really carefully :) )

Good luck getting everything done in your window. Our window closed rather suddenly, so I have my bilge 3/4 done (but the important parts, from a functional perspective, so I'll be good if there's a winter sailing season this year).
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
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Re: Any economical fillet solutions?

Postby marcusg » Thu Oct 29, 2020 9:54 am

Yeah I made a master list last night of each "category" of repair (bilge, deck, topsides, transom, coamings, cuddy door, etc. etc.) and realized it's a LOT. Even if all went according to plan (1% chance of that happening) it would be pretty tight to get it all done in two weeks. I'll do my best to prep things in the time between now and then...no easy task when I threw out my back splitting wood a week ago :)
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Re: Any economical fillet solutions?

Postby GreenLake » Thu Oct 29, 2020 2:42 pm

So you got a "splitting back ache", so to speak. :)
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
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