> It's time to start fairing up my hull. When I mix sawdust with epoxy to
> make filler how fine does the sawdust need to be? Thanks, Bob

I built a strip canoe and wanted a smoooooth finish so I improved Gil Gilpatrick's method in his canoe building book of using water putty. My final effort worked quite well.

I first shaped the hull with a Stanley Shurform. Then for a filler I used Barham's water putty. It's a powder you mix with water. Its is a very pale yellow in color and the cedar strips I used were much darker. So to get a good match in color I took a small amount of aniline dye 1/8 teaspoon and desolved it completely into about 1 tablespoon of water, then I added about 4 big heaping tablespoons of Barhams and more water to make a paste the thickness of cream. (Its important to desolve the dye in water before adding it to the putty or colored specks and smears appear in the putty.) I then rubbed down the entire hull with a scrub pad and the paste. I had to work fast because the Barhams sets in just a few minutes. I ended up with the ugliest smeared up boat I'd ever seen. Then I fair sanded the boat with 80 grit. Of course every gouge from from the Surform showed up forcing me to, indeed, sand them out. The putty sands at the same rate as the cedar. When I done sanding I had a hull with EVERY crack and staple hole filled and it was as smooth as a baby's bottom!. It was a lot of work sanding off all that putty. But I would do it again because th hull ended up totally filled and smooth with zero epoxy putty.