Use it or Lose it

[Rick6a]

For the umpteenth time, you have some left over epoxy sitting idle in the bottom of a paper cup after doing a task on the RV. As you vacantly stare into the cup and half-heartedly stir the unused mix with a tongue depressor....you sense the beginnings of chemical heat and know the clock is ticking. You have to act fast. You hate the idea of simply throwing out the rest of the expensive West System epoxy. What to do, what to do? I've found myself wandering about the homestead filling drill holes in the workbench, pouring the resin into hairline cracks in the concrete floor, even adding flox to it to touch up mortar around the exterior brickwork. So what do YOU do with left over epoxy after taking care of its more important business? Do you give it a toss or do you find something else for it to do? Enquiring minds want to know.

[sf3543]

Before it sets up completely, I mix in some acetone to thin it out, which slows down the process and then I use that to paint the cowling. Use enough acetone to thin it like water and just brush it on the inside of the cowl halves. This seals the cowl and keeps any oil or fuel from getting impregnated into it if you don't paint it. I also painted it on the outside of the cowl to help fill in pin holes.
During the building process, almost every time I used epoxy, I did this and eventually covered the entire inside and outside of the cowling with a couple of coats of epoxy. Sand between coats and you can make it really smooth. There is a back issue of the RVator that talks about this in conjunction with using their stick on aluminum heat shielding on the inside of the cowl. You can thin the same batch a couple of times if you need to, since the acetone tends to evaporate and the epoxy starts to stiffen up.
This works on all of the glass parts.