Saturday Morning - Tidying

Before any more work could be done on the kayak, I needed to tidy the garage. Apparently, the key to working with epoxy is being organised and tidy. I wanted a store to keep the epoxy containers with their pumps mounted that I could use and pack away with the minimum of fuss and the minimum of risk of getting resin all over things it shouldn't.



To this end I cleared a space in the corner of the garage near the door. For my epoxy storage unit, I used an old heavy duty plastic document container that I had previously made a lid for to use as a tool and recovery gear box in the back of the Land Rover. I chocked it up on blocks and screwed through its base into the block wall to keep it stood on its side. I used a piece of scrap board as a false floor, packed up at the front to bring the tapered box side back to near-enough level, and used a bit of redundant flat-pack computer desk to make a shelf over the top. The bungee cord closing was the same as had been used in the Land Rover, but I moved the cleat to on top of the shelf for easier access.



The beauty of this arrangement is that I just have to pull the containers onto the open lid/door to use them, and any spills should be restricted to this easily replaced piece of board. Perhaps I should cover it with some polythene sheet that can be pulled of and thrown away, allowing the door to be closed with no fear of it being bonded shut when I return the next day.

Before I stopped for lunch I went and got some safety equipment. For using the epoxy I wanted vinyl gloves (I find the latex ones far too flimsy), some good glasses that wouldn't keep slipping, a cover-all disposable suit and some masks that would be up to blocking the fine sanding dust. I went to the the Archer's Road branch of Protector Safety, where a very nice man soon had me fully outfitted for a mere $55.