Gluing Up Port Toe Rail

November 3, 2015

I wanted to take some time this evening to glue up the port toe rail, so my first order of business was to perform a cursory sanding on the three boards that would ultimately make up the port toe rail.  The sanding was to remove blemishes left from the table saw blade, and to just generally prepare the boards for glue up.

I sanded the boards with 80-grit pads on the random orbital finish sander.  With the sanding finished, I wiped the boards down with acetone to remove the sanding residue - preparation for the epoxy work that would come next.  

Just before I got to gluing up the port toe rail I removed the rub rails from their clamps to review the weekend's work of gluing up the rails.  I had used sheets of plastic to prevent the clamps from becoming epoxied to the rail itself, as a result I could not get a good visual on the line up of the scarf joints.  I relied on feeling the scarf joint to ensure that I did, in fact, have good alignment.  However, I had a couple poor performances on the scarf joints - not bad, but not to my liking.  I sanded down the cured squeeze out, and prepped the small voids for further epoxy fill.

My next task was to again wipe down the port toe rail's scarf joints, and then applied 'neat' epoxy to the joints to saturate the wood to ensure a good mating of the joints.  With the balance of neat epoxy that I mixed up to wet out the toe rail I thickened it and applied to the small voids on the rub rails - problem solved.

Finally, I mixed up another batch of epoxy and thickened it with colloidal silica and micro-balloons and spread onto the scarf joints.  Taking 4 clamps per joint, I made sure I had good alignment and squeeze out this time - choosing not to use the plastic sheeting.

All looks good for the port toe rail.

Total Time: 1 Hr.