: I tried making my own penetrating epoxy by thinning Raka 127/610 with 10%
: acetone, inspired by the instructions in the link that Brian posted a few
: weeks back: http://www.epoxyproducts.com/penetrating4u.html

: The addition of acetone _really_ retarded the cure of the epoxy. I was
: getting to stiff green cured epoxy overnight (8 hours) with unthinned
: epoxy at 70+ *F, and I wasn't even past the sticky stage at 24 hours, with
: two elevations to 100*F. Penetration, though, appeared to be great. I'm
: not sure I wouldn't just try applying warmed (apply quickly!) to warm
: wood, though, so I can get a more predictable cure next time.

: I'll try some xylene, too. And maybe only 5%, rather than 10%--it looks like
: a little bit goes a long ways.

: I built two Norsaqs, one finished with linseed oil/varnish/turpentine, and
: the other finished with the thinned epoxy. I'll post some durability
: results at the end of the summer.

: Shawn

I was forced to re-epoxy my S&G coaming and hatch frames a couple of weeks ago. The summer heat had started to lift and split the first layer of ply (type of ply I used).

After sanding off old epoxy, I applied 3 consecutive layers of 25%,10%, 5%, approx. thinned epoxy. 1st layer disappeared into the ply, 2nd filled any grain and 3rd smoothed it off. I applied after work each day (every 24hrs) which allowed the sun to heat the coaming and before cooling off at night. Temperature here is still 20 - 25 degrees (Celsius). Each batch of left over epoxy had fully hardened after 24hrs. Maybe the constant high temperature allowed it to cure better then your batch?

The epoxy I used was AWLCraft 421 thinned with International Epoxy Thinner #7. I don't know if it is acetone or xylene. Penetration was great, much better then unthinned epoxy on cooling ply. I would say it completely saturated the 1st layer of ply (sanded). I varnished a couple of days latter which was a mistake since the varnish started to bead. Probably the thinner hadn't fully evaporated. A week would have been better. Just another of those things that I notice but nobody else will.

I wouldn't hesitate doing the same to a full kayak next time.

Cheers
Grant