Finally got the gloves on, epoxy mixed, rope of roving saturated, hung, and laid in a perimeter tape dam.
A bit overkill, but more deck width slight concave lip, and more strength desired.
Then gave the mini a tune up.
My largest urethane motor sleeves got swapped on, and the zealous bearings got serviced.
Full size neoprene enclosure gasket got fresh masking tape.
Need new black sharpie marker.
Flintstone Footed.
Curses.
I got these high quality condiment bottles to dispense my Epoxy resin and hardener, precisely, with minimal mess.
I labelled each one distinctly, Blue for resin, red for hardener.
This new Resin Research Bio epoxy and slow hardener are the same exact color, water white, perfectly clear. At 85F they are the same super thin viscosity.
I mixed a second batch of epoxy for my deck Diagonals, and apparently perfectly mixed 100: of resin with :44 of resin, instead of hardener.
WTF?!!
Damn my brain and my lifelong foot shooting proclivities.
The perimeter roving rope cured properly, but the Diagonals needed to be removed. I scrubbed off the resin as best as I could, but the curst fest is Ongoing.
The resin on top of previously cured epoxy will come off , but there was bare wood on the diagonals that it soaked into. This mistake will forever be obvious, assuming I can get past it.
Gonna gumm up a lot of sandpaper and barrel sanders, and need to get something stronger than 91% isoproply alcohol.
farkin’ ‘ell
Even if I did not shoot my foot, the perimeter rope did not come out nearly as symmetrically as I had intended.
This epoxy resin and the regular blue masking tape are not compatible.
Even where I know that properly ratioed epoxy was in contact, the tape got all gummed up, whereas with my previous APEX laminating epoxy this same blue tape would not stick to the cured epoxy strongly and would not leave gummy residue behind. Peeling the tape off was impossible.
An 120vac angle grinder on router speed controller with back to back 36 grit flexible 5” sanding disks flung the gummy blue taped mess into the bushes.
My real surfboard sanding tools are elsewhere.
Need to go get them and some new low grit abrasives.
Am still debating on how much on the deck to remove.
Old Diagonals are still good, the brown sugar grip is very thick in parts, worn or missing in others, and I need to redo the grip afterwards anyway.
Contemplating sacrificing some power planer blades, at least I can attach a vacuum to it, but it could ruin power planer.
Don’t really want to lose the burnt ravens.
Giant clouds of dust were made today.
Epoxy, fiberglass, birch, polyurethane dust everywhere.
I started with 36 grit on the 8 inch powerpad on the 1990’s era 12.5 amp Milwaukee 2900 rpm sander/polisher above.
It’s a powerful heavy beast with a ton of torque, and I was really leaning into it, far harder than I would use on a surfboard, and removing tons of material each pass.
Am super itchy.
Tried to save the ravens, but then decided to remove entire outer veneer of Baltic birch Plywood.
23 years ago when I made this deck, I didn’t seal it with Epoxy, but polyurethane, and this poly had nearly fully saturated that first layer of birch, and I want the new Epoxy to soak into bare wood for maximum bond strength, So that outer veneer had to come off.
I had thought I got it all and went over it with 220 grit but saw it was all splotchy, so went back to 120 grit and just went at it, digging come concave into it.
Gonna laminate it proper, with some 7.5oz cloth and might do some roving diagonals too, as reduced torsional flex is desirable.
Will let the 7.5 oz hang off the edges and cure to extend width, then flip it and add more perimeter roving to support the overhanging cloth.
I am designing a new flexible enclosure in my mind for this deck, but it might never happen.
Sometimes i get all sentimental about fibreglass and want to make stuff with it again… thanks for the reality check 
