: Hi, all-I remember hearing about a coating on fiberglass that can deteriorate
: over time; I think I may have run into this problem-I put a layer of 4 oz.
: glass over a scarf joint as reinforcement (non-kayak sign project), bought
: the glass at CLC probably 5-6 years ago; I used MAS w/ fast hardener,
: painter's tape masking off the ends of the reinforcement, squeegeed off
: the excess resin, but not enough to starve the glass. Next morning, as I
: lifted up the tape to trim the glass, the glass pulled up. The epoxy
: underneath adhered to the original surface, indicating that the problem
: lies with the adhesion of the glass to the epoxy rather than the adhesion
: of the epoxy to the substrate. Could I be the victim of a good glass
: coating gone bad? I bought the epoxy and resin less than a month ago,
: don't think that's the problem.-Greg

Greg - The problem may be more related to the epoxy than the glass. I had a similar problem using MAS fast hardener for making glue. It apparently cures before adequately penetrating the wood to be joined. I tried to fast-glue a laminated ash stem to the bow of a cedar stripped canoe. The next day, I tried the joint and it pulled right off with little effort. The fix was to remove the stem (it just popped off) and scrape and sand all of the cured epoxy down to bare wood. Re-gluing with a new batch of thickened epoxy after a preliminary soak with unthickened mix did the trick, but this time I used 75% MAS slow hardener with only 25% fast. It takes a couple of days to fully cure, but it works well.

- John