Repairing cracked rudder, continued

A month ago I posted a note about repairing my cracked mahogany rudder. It
was suggested that I let epoxy draw into the crack; drilling some small
holes and heating it first to facilitate it. Someone was even kind enough
to send me some very light fiberglass tape to put over the crack.

When I cleaned it up, I found the damage was more extensive than I thought.
Some material had broken off at the bottom of the crack, and had been filled
in with some patching material.

I cleaned all the old crud out, heated it up, and let epoxy soak in. I then
filled it all in with epoxy putty, and then put the fiberglass tape over it
all. I did all the epoxying in 5 minutes. I figured that would enable all
the material to bond together.

Does that make any sense, or did I screw up? I thought about letting the
soaking epoxy harden, putting in the putty and letting that harden, and then
putting on the tape; but figured doing it all at once would facilitate
chemical bonding. (there was also less clean up)

Any ideas on the right way to have done it?

It seems to be okay, only time will tell.

"John Smith" <js4321.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<AS74b.1089$RD2.660@news01.roc.ny>...
 > A month ago I posted a note about repairing my cracked mahogany rudder. It
 > was suggested that I let epoxy draw into the crack; drilling some small
 > holes and heating it first to facilitate it. Someone was even kind enough
 > to send me some very light fiberglass tape to put over the crack.
 >
 > When I cleaned it up, I found the damage was more extensive than I thought.
 > Some material had broken off at the bottom of the crack, and had been filled
 > in with some patching material.
 >
 > I cleaned all the old crud out, heated it up, and let epoxy soak in. I then
 > filled it all in with epoxy putty, and then put the fiberglass tape over it
 > all. I did all the epoxying in 5 minutes. I figured that would enable all
 > the material to bond together.
 >
 > Does that make any sense, or did I screw up? I thought about letting the
 > soaking epoxy harden, putting in the putty and letting that harden, and then
 > putting on the tape; but figured doing it all at once would facilitate
 > chemical bonding. (there was also less clean up)
 >
 > Any ideas on the right way to have done it?
 >
 > It seems to be okay, only time will tell.

I am not sure what you mean by putty. I hope you do not mean the two
part epoxy sticks you get at a hardware store where you cut off a
couple of chunks and mix it together. Anyway, I think they pretty much
got the right way sorted out in the last thread... Prepare the wood.
Using good two part epoxy soak everything in brushed thin goo, fill in
the rest with thickened epoxy, wet again, lay on the tape, wet the
tape out. Do this in the late afternoon so it gets to cure with a
falling temp, and make sure there are no air bubbles, especially under
the tape. Yes, there should be no problem doing this all at once for
your project. If you were close to this you should be ok, not having
seen the part.
Scotty, back from newsgroup hell... I think I will stay a stinkpotter
and a sailor.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->