Skipper and I like to usher small boats to their natural habitat, and after 29 years at this work we are creeping up on 80 restorations or new builds. Many of these projects involved smoothing a wood or fiberglass surface prior to application of primer and paint. With our first few projects we used an epoxy-based system that required a guessing game of resin, hardener, and various types and amounts of thickening powders. Four years ago we tried TotalBoat’s TotalFair epoxy-based fairing compound and have stuck with it ever since.TotalFair is a two-part epoxy-based compound, packaged in separate containers of resin and hardener. The fairing filler is mixed into both parts, so there is no guessing how much filler needs to be added and nothing runny to make a mess. The resin is yellow, the hardener is blue, and each part is scooped out onto a mixing board. We measure the parts by eyeball; ratio has not proven to be super-critical. Cardboard makes a handy palette for mixing the yellow and blue until the compound is a uniform green. The opaque materials and the color combination make it much easier to see when the two parts have been completely mixed than with clear resin and hardener. The mixing ratio is not critical. Just eyeball equal amounts of the resin and hardener then mix until you have a uniform green without streaks of yellow or blue.
Photographs by the authors
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Thanks for this, and for the many other helpful ones you have done.
Will this product blush?