> Perhaps an ignorant suggestion - what about the "fast-cure"
> epoxies which come in a set of two syringes and require little mixing?
> Has anyone experimented with this?

It is good glue, but more expensive than I would want to pay for assembling a a kayak. I'd estimate you get about 10 cc of total glue in a typical twin pack, and pay about $3 for it. Since there are roughly 30 cc in an ounce you would be paying around $9 an ounce for glue.

For a 14 1/2 foot canoe I used about 25 ounces of wood glue. I would expect to use about the same for a kayak. In round numbers I would be looking at about 60 to 75 of those epoxy paks, or about $180 to $225. I would argue for a substantial quantity discount if I did that much business with the local hardware store. That is more than I spent for the epoxy and fiberglass fabric for the entire canoe. I suspect this cost is what keeps people from using it more. (Of course if you are building boats for the government, and cost is no object . . .) :)

It requires good mixing, same as all epoxys. The advantage of the siamese syringes is that they evenly meter the amounts of resin and hardener.

You can pretty well duplicate this trick for much less money. What you will need is a couple pints of fast setting epoxy and some syringes.

Your local pharmacy can sell you syringes used for measuring and dispensing medicines to babies. These things do not (usually) accept needles and do not require prescriptions. Hobby stores also carry syringes for glue, or you can buy some nice ones from Clark-Craft ( www.clarkcraft.com and write for their free parts and materials catalog. You don't need their $5 plans catalog.)

Label the syringes for resin and hardener and keep refilling them.

As for fast setting epoxy, from other posts on this board I gather that MAS and West systems both have a fast-working hardener. I think there are a few others that do, too. If using this at room temperature is not quick enough for you, aim some quartz lights at your work area to heat it up. It may not set in 5 minutes, but the cost savings will be more than worth it, and the extra pot life may actually be of some use in getting the strips aligned.

You use the same resin for glassing the boat, but with a different hardener. Any extra fast-setting hardener is good to keep on hand for repairs, which tend to involve small sections of fiberglass that wet out quickly.

Has anyone actually built a kayak with these small tubes of fast setting epoxy? I believe so. As I recall, in his book on canvas skin boats George Putz mentions using these for gluing scarfs and for attaching the bracing, or bridging. He comments that the cost is high, but he uses so little in building, and the convenience is so great that it is worth it to him. Mind you, he is not assembling strippers.

Hope this info helps.

Paul Jacobson

And a postscript for those who want to brag about their boats being held together with their own sweat and blood, this news release:

>Baxter International Inc. won Food and Drug Administration clearance to
> sell the first fibrin sealant approved in the U.S. to help stop bleeding.
> Baxter's Tisseel is a kind of biological glue. It mimics the body's natural
> process in blood clotting The technology long has been used in Europe and
> even in some cases in the U.S., where doctors literally mixed up their own
> versions using variations of superglue.

I guess you could spread this stuff on one strip and sweat (or bleed) on the other to get enough moisture to activate it. I did not see any comments on whether this stuff is compatible with being encapuslated in epoxy.