: I have a few drips of epoxy from gluing the seams on my kayak (Water's
: Dancing Solace 16 XL) and am wondering what's the best way to deal with
: them. I've read and been told that if I sand them the sander will likely
: also remove some of the wood around the drips leaving me with more fairing
: to do. Do I need a scraper for this? If so, which scraper would you
: recommend? Hopefully, it would be something I could pick up at my local
: Home depot or hardware store, as I'm itching to get this project done.

Ken, if there are just a few drips you can remove them cheaply and easily by hand sanding with nothing more elaborate than a piece of sandpaper wrapped around a block of wood which is slightly bigger than a deck of cards. I like to use a thumbtack or a staple to hold the sandpaper to the block.

An electic sander is overkill. As your mention, it will probably remove too much, and work too fast for you to control it. But a sanding block will not cause those problems.

You should be able to hold this in one hand easily, and with gentle pressure you can reduce the drips to a level surface in just a few wipes. You can easily control the angle of the block so that you don't damage surrounding areas, and of course the pressure can be reduced to a gentle touch.

Since there is no motor involved you'll feel the added drag as your drip disappears and the sanding block starts to make contact over a greater area of the hull. That's when you stop and move on to the next drip.

Start with a medium grit sandpaper (100 to 120 grit) and after you have leveled the drips change to a finer grit paper (150 to 220) and go back over each area, making jsut a few gentle passes with light pressure, so you blend the sanded-out drip over a slightly larger area.

A "cabinet" scraper does a very nice job on green or hardened epoxy. That is what is pictured in one of the replies. I've used ordinary paint scrapers on green epoxy and had good results, but as the resin gets harder and harder the paint scrapers must be VERY sharp or they just slide over the drips. Paint scrapers are fairly inexpensive at any hardware store that sells paint.

Some people use wood planes. A small plane should slice through the drip area very easily and quickly. Take very thin cuts and when the drip is gone you may want to go over the area with a sanding block with fine-grit sandpaper.

Hope this helps

PGJ