Best Mix for Fillets

[Dmksails]

I'm getting ready to do the fillets, In the book, it says to use a mix of 9 parts wood flour to 1 part cel-o-fil. On the forum I've seen other mixes up to 50/50.

Is there a consensus on what the best mix is for use in fillets?

[dbeck]

Hi Dmk,

on page 10 the manual says 'peanut butter-like'. Not too soft, so that vertical fillets start to 'sag'. Not too hard, otherwise you'll have a hard time squeezing it out of the pastry bag. We never used a pre-defined ratio but just mixed until the consistency was fine. I always preferred to have the mixture slightly to the soft side, as some of the epoxy will be soaked into the plywood. Just try, its no rocket science. Don't mix too much epoxy at once, otherwise the big mass of epoxy in the pastry bag may start to become hot. About 2-3 hours later, I recommend the 'alcohol finger trick' to smooth the fillet as described on page 212.

BTW: In the beginning, we made the fillets; next day tedious sanding ... no fun. Soon we changed strategy and started glassing over the not yet fully cured fillets, see page 128 (in my opinion: the moment after the 'alcohol finger trick' is just perfect). We did so for almost all the fillets. This saves the hassle of sanding and gives a stronger (chemical) bond between fillet and glass.

Dietrich