> Just got my pygmy Artic Tern kit and last night epoxied one side of all my
> butt joints (for the kayaks left side). Inspected the joints this morning
> and it looks like I used WAY too much epoxy to float the glass tape.

> Now that I have pulled off the mylar strips, I have left myself with
> thick, hard epoxy which seeped out beyond the mylar and WAY over the seem
> edges.

> Of course the next step in the instruction manual is to trim the excess
> tape at the seem edges, but I think I have a much bigger mess to take care
> of. My box knife is just barely able to cut through the epoxy.

> Anybody else make these mistakes? How did you trim off the excess hardened
> epoxy, is there a time saver here?

> Also, I accidently glued a piece of one of the 3.5" wide scrap
> plywood boards (used to weight down the mylar) to the side of a panel.
> When I removed the board, it pulled a nickel sized piece of ply off of the
> panel and produced a half-inch crack in the ply. Should I just epoxy fill
> this area to repair it, (I'm almost done blaming myself for being ignorant
> enough to damage it)?

> Paul (boy am I nervous) Williams

Paul, I used a sharp block plane to trim the excess on the edges of the panels. The flat surface where you applied the tape I used a cabinet scraper to remove the excess resin. Both sides of the panels will eventually be glassed and any thick areas will show. Remove as much resin as you can without cutting into the tape.

On the area that need filling, Used thickened epoxy if its deep (after scraping excess) but if its on the outside be careful using thickened epoxy as it may show on the finished boat. You could cut a small piece of glass the same size as the hole and fill with unthickend epoxy ( may take more than one application)

The one thing I learned early about using epoxy is that "Less is more"

Larry C.