: What is the best way to split my boat?

Lrt's avoid that issue for the moment. It is something you really want to avoid at this point. Splitting he boat will indeed make it easier to clean up the mess of a bad batch of epoxy, but it will compound your problems later on. What you need to do is emove the bad glass and resin as much as possible. Unfortunately the area you will be working in is the worst possible. it will be tight, cramped and smelly.

Use a putty knife to see if you can dislodge the glass tape at the nearest point you cna reach it. If it is not sliding around, then you have effectively glued your glass tape to the boat and have got a mes of unhardened epoxy, or hardener, sitting on the surface. If the tape will not come off with a dull putty knife then just remove the excess goop with a liberal amount of straight white vinegar. Wear gloves and have plenty of spare gloves. Change them often, even if you don't see any rips in them. The uncured resin and hardener are irritants, and you could become sensitized to them, and eventually allergic to them--so keep them off of your skin.

Here's the thinking: if you had a bad mix then you had SOME epoxy and SOME hardener in the mixing cup. Whatever was there, and mixed, will set up. If there was an excess of one part or the other, then it is just sitting there, unreacted. if there was bad mixing action, then the part of the batch that got mixed right has reacted by now, and the part of the batch that didn't get mixed right is just sitting there. Vinegar will thin the unreacted materials but not affect any which has cured.

If the tape can be dislodged with the dull putty knife then the resin is not setting up at all. It is possible your "mix" had a pump from one bottle, and then another pump from the same bottle. It oculd be a double shot of hardener, or a double shot of resin. Doesn't matter which. If the tape is not sticking at all, then carefully lift the tape using that dull putty knife, cut it, and peel it away from your joint. Use the putty knife to help you so you don't loosen the layer of glass under it. If you have a completely unreacted batch on there then nothing is going to hold that glass strip very securely and you won't need heat to remove it. Once the tape is off you can clean the joint area with vinegar.

Either way, there is is no way to prevent getting vinegar into the edges of any exposed wood in the joint area. Before you re-tape the joint you'll want to wait several days for that to evaporate completely.

If the vinegar treatment leaves the area a little tacky, you might try using some acetone or lacquer thinner to get rid of any remaining tackiness. Both of these are nasty to breathe, so do a little area at a time and work with a fan nearby to increase the ventilation. You want to blow the fumes away from you. These solvents evaporate rapidly, so you can apply your new glass strip within an hour after using them.

Work carefully as the boat is held together by the outside glass--which should be strong enough. Do one quarter of the boat at a time: Left Front, then left rear, then retape the entire left side. Then remove the right front and finally the right rear before retaping the right side. Unless the tape is sliding around, even a bad epoxy job eill add a bit of strength while you are working on the opposite side. And who knows. By the time you get done with retaping the left side that right side may have hardened.

The unfortunate thing about this is that it will really slow down your building schedule. Fixing this kind of a problem can take a weekend per side. And being cramped inside the ends of the boat trying to get the old junk out is uncomfortable.

Safety tip: have a person around while you are working, and keep talking to them. The fumes and tight quarters can cut your oxygen supply. you don't want to pass out after crawling to the far end of the boat.

Hope this helps

PGJ
Hope this helps.