: I have a wonderful wife who graciously let me start my kayak in the living
: room
: (started right after Thanksgiving). Patience has worn thin and I am
: relocating my kayak building shop to the garage. Temps here in MI are
: still cool (next few weeks may be 40-50 degrees days and 30-40 degrees
: nights but could easily be colder). I only have the "standard"
: System Three hardener (generally to 60 degrees). I will be joining the
: deck to hull and then glassing the deck. Am I limited to waiting until
: warmer temps or can I use the epoxy and just plan on longer cure times?

Epoxy is thick like a syrup.

The colder the thicker, the warmer the thinner.

Warmer epoxy and warmer wood/ glass will wet-out better
and penetrate better.

You'll have this boat for long time quite possibly. Is it worth it to
work in warmer temperatures to have the maximum bond strength
and the most transparent glass job?

If it doesn’t matter to you and you just want to finish, your joints may/may not
be a little weaker and your glass cloudy and silver flecked due to lack of
total wet-out.

You can make a simple inexpensive heat room in your garage to cure the epoxy.

Use plastic sheeting to make a smaller area you can heat to cure your epoxy. Screw
or clamp some 2 X 2 polls from floor to ceiling and stretch plastic over it to make
an enclosed area. I have a couple oil filled electric heaters I use to heat my shop
while I'm away. They cost $40 each at Home Depot. One of these would keep the
temperature up to cure your epoxy.

If you have a wall in common with the house you can use this to increase heat loss
by incorporating it into a plastic sheet room.

You can easily make the polls movable to open or close off the area for heating.

I use plastic sheeting all the time to close off areas fo my shop if I have to work
with a very dusty proceedure like when I rough out my foam seat blanks with
a saw tooth grinder blade. Now that's a mess.

All the best,

Rob Macks
Laughing Loon CC&K
www.LaughingLoon.com