...and it worked out okay.

I used the three main application methods I'm familiar with: squeegee, roller, and cheap bristle brush. I thinned each 8 oz. batch with about 20ml of xylene, which I was hoping to be between 5 and 10%.

The thinner mixture made the squeegee method the messiest, but it's also the method I'm least familiar with. There were quite a few runs past the sheer before I caught up with them. Using the thin yellow rollers, I covered the same amount of area in a little less time, but the roller started getting foamy by the end. Using the brush was not as fast as the roller, and one had to be careful to get enough epoxy applied so as to avoid the little pinholes that result from just barely wetting out the fabric.

By the evening, everything had set up just fine, and the xylene odor had faded completely. If appearances mean anything at this stage, it worked very well. The fabric wetted out nicely, and squeegeed as much as I wanted, especially where the foamy roller had started to go bad on me. I think I got all the small bubbles out because the epoxy stayed thin enough to work without pulling on the cloth.

Working by the clock is still critical, I would say. With each batch, I reset the shop timer to 15 minutes after mixing. Working quickly (as opposed to neatly) I got the epoxy completly spread out within 5 to 10 minutes, and when the buzzer sounded, I started in with the squeegee. I don't think I saved any epoxy in the end, i.e., I squeegeed up about the same amount of 'grunge' as usual.

Pete Roszyk,
in Snohomish