GOOPIE Options

[TexaRican]

What are my options for doing a clear (or as close as possible) goopie for fillets? Silica? Micro balloons? Others? Tradeoffs for each?

[gerald]

What are your reasons for wanting a clear goopie? I can think of nothing that will give you a clear goopie. Fumed silica might be the closest, but it would still be milky. It might be suitable with very small fillets. Small fillets of 1/8" with fumed silica are generally big enough. Another alternative is to wait until a mix of expoxy begins to set and use it as goopie, but that presents other problems, and has a very small window when you can apply it. I believe there might be a clear glass microballon--if you can find it. That would work.
I like opaque goopie. It covers a lot of bad stuff...

[TexaRican]

Well, the original reason for the question had to do with my daughter. As soon as I finish some fence repairs next weekend I'll be free to start another build which will be her boat. I'm gonna try a foam core boat since one has been built and proven on here now. My foam is pink and she wants a pink boat. Figured if my goopie was clear enough, I could just clear coat the boat with a UV protective spray and avoid having to do a base pink color coat. I know

However, I have since realized I want to build something that can also function as a buddy boat and I know none of my buddies are going to paddle a pink boat. We've since compromised and the boat will be painted white and zebra striped .

[RealBigReel]

I have used glass microballoons and phenolic microballoons. Neither is clear, however mixing the 2 together can approximate the color of wood. Nice thing about epoxy/microballooons is that the viscosity is adjustable by how much microballoons are mixed in. You may want to do something like that around your wood trim.
I have used filler from paintable to spreadable, depending on what I needed. I have also laid glass right down over the uncured corner fillers and then of course used regular epoxy over the top to make sure the glass weave is filled. This saves cure time and having to sand the filler before applying the glass. Sanding in tight corners can be difficult, as you don't want to sand Styrofoam just the filler.

If you are building a sheet Styrofoam boat I will be watching with interest. Let me know if I can be of assistance.

[TexaRican]

I don't need clear after all - it was just thinking out loud (or on the web). Gonna use the green foam from Lowes when I start. I'm still designing in my head so I'm pretty far from starting. I want to build a matched pair of boats. Basic 3 panel design but I'm going to modify the plans I have to shorten the boat some. Then I might, might try to convert to a SOT style. I think this will be a game time decision once I start cutting foam.

Right now, I want to sell my current boat to make room. A matched pair of 13 footers sure will look good on my trailer

[RealBigReel]

If you use 2 lb foam for your filler layers in the cockpit area only, it will only add an about 5 lbs to the weight of the kayak to make it SOT. I have been thinking about converting SANDY to SOT. For right now I just keep the bailing sponge handy.

[TexaRican]

That is pretty much what I was thinking I'd do. Bulkheads fore and aft for large floatation/storage compartments and a much smaller cockpit than my last boat. The cockpit floor would be raised on a solid layer of foam and the scuppers cut through that. I think having scuppers go through solid material would eliminate much of the problems associated with scuppers creating weak points like they do in plastic boats.
Behind the seat, I'll have a 'well' for a cooler or milk crate. It won't have scuppers but the floor will be raised in that compartment and I'll probably cut side drains above the designed water line similar to those in a self bailing deck of a flats boat.
We'll see soon. Pretty sure my flats canoe is sold and being picked up tomorrow so after a couple of long business trips, I'll start the foam builds in a few weeks.

[RealBigReel]

You have some excellent ideas there. Some random thoughts:
HYBRID only has 2 scuppers. One at the feet (also where the Mirage drive sits) and 1 under the seat (also where the FF transducer cable comes up).
If I didn't have a reason to cut the scuppers through the floor like on HYBRID, I might make the cockpit with side scuppers like you describe for your cooler "well".
With scuppers through foam I can't imagine the loss of structural integrity that comes with scuppers on Polyethylene boats. For one thing Fiberglass over Styrofoam is a lot stronger than Polyethylene.

If you slant your aft cockpit bulkhead about 10 or 15° you can make it a hard back seat back. This is the lightest way to go and the most comfortable. I wish I had done that with SANDY. The 200 dollar SOT seat that I bought is not that great. Probably need 2 layers of glass for strength and ruggedness over the bottom and back of your cockpit. A hard seat position reduces your ability to change your fore/aft CG but moving other things around will probably suffice.

For my next boat I am going to form it up like I did with SANDY and then lay pieces of foam in the cockpit area being careful not to leave any voids. I found with GAR that any closed void can pick up water. And foam in place just doesn't work that well. Pour in foam might have 95% closed cells but the open cells are generally towards the bottom of the pour and they are big.

It is difficult to seal around a cooler. I ride some pretty rough water on occasion and waters splashes in around my cooler on both of my boats. On one particularly rough trip I had a over a gallon in the back of HYBRID. This situation would be difficult to fix with HYBRID because the batteries and the bait tank motor are right in front of cooler, and the rear deck is only 8" high. But with SANDY a cooler raised a few inches probably wouldn't hurt the CG that bad except it would reduce the access to the rear storage area.

[TexaRican]

Well, the Texas Flats Canoe just drove off, clearing the way for the foam boats! First I have to get a little motorcycle project done though. Picked it up last night and nearly lost a trailer wheel on the way home. Outer bearing, castle nut and everything was gone I don't know what kept the wheel on the axel but I think another block and it would have come off. So now I've got a lame trailer and a non-running motorcycle occupying my garage and my next few weekends. What was I thinking?

[Texmullet]

You shoudda bought the beemer!

[TexaRican]

You shoudda bought the beemer!

Yeah, I'm still thinking about that one. Nice bike. But I can just imagine that trailer wheel would have come off on I-10 somewhere in east Houston and I'd have been in big trouble