It was on the American website that I follow religiously, http://www.offcenterharbor.com, that I discovered the secret-weapon!
When one uses epoxy as a glue or as a filler, one has to deliver it to the area in which it is to used as efficiently as possible. I've tried trying to get it in place with a palette knife, pieces of wood and with a scraper. Although these ways work, it is very inefficient and......sticky.... and I have a bad reputation with sticky things!
Enter the secret weapon: the humble icing (frosting) bag, often called a pastry bag.
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| Icing/Pastry Bag |
For the uninformed, this is a conical bag into which bulk icing is placed. The tip of the bag is then snipped off to the required size. The bag is then squeezed and the icing emerges, very much like toothpaste out of a tube, and piped around the cake.
The problem I found was that when I put the glue in the bag, half of it got wasted sticking to the length of the inside of the bag: I only needed the bottom quarter of the bag, as epoxy goes-off very quickly so you can only work in small quantities.
My own invention was to put the bag in a tin (can) thus:
I mixed my epoxy glue in a yogurt carton and then scooped it into the bag:
Next I piped the glue beneath the bilge runner, which was loosely held in place by screws:
Finally, I screwed the runner into place, not too tightly but just enough for the epoxy to squeeze out a little (the epoxy's adhesive quality secures the joint and not the pressure from tight screws, unlike many glues).
I then ran my gloved finger along the edges forming the squeezed out glue into a fillet.
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