First part!

My brother gave me a call today to have me check my e-mail. I was surprised to see the following photos. He was able during his lunch break to stop by a specialty wood supplier and pick up some birch plywood and was kind enough to cut out the firewall for me.

I am a little jealous that I didn't get to cut it out, but Grant is a real craftsman and I am glad he took care of it for me.

I wish my workshop floor was as nice as his!

Practice layup 3

Here is the book end, Im not real proud of this, but I suppose this is what practice is for.

Practice layup 2

Here is the second practice layup, the confidence layup. Today I got impatient and decided to test it. Unfortunately I did this upside down and the piece started to crack a little. I then tested it correctly and is flexed a little but held my weight with no problem.

Practice layup 1.

I have completed the first practice layup. In the end the part weiged in at 9-7/8 oz. The manual says that the lightest the layup should be is 10-1/2 oz. with out voids. My layup did not contain any voids, so its a mystery how I managed to make the layup so light. Perhaps my scale is not accurate.

The EZ-Poxy provided with the practice kit is a lot smellier than I anticipated. I used West system epoxy when I built my kayak.

It had an odor, but nothing like the EZ-Poxy. I also for some reason do not like the color, I suppose this really shouldn't matter. The epoxy did wet out the glass well though, so I might consider using it if I can get used to the smell.





I have decided to use a digital scale to portion the epoxy. The EZ-Poxy came in small paint like tins so I transfer the resin and hardener to squeeze bottles. At first I only had one for the hardener and didn't know what to do for the resin. Then I noticed I had an empty ketchup container. It works quite well.

My brother initially rigged up a bungee to keep the glass cabinet shut. This worked well for a while, but I wanted something more permenat, so while waiting for the epoxy to set up I quickly put together different solution as seen in the picture.

It was nice to have the materials on hand to build the cabinet and fashion the door stay. It's a good reminder to not throw away materials that can be used later if at all possible.