Filleting was one of those techniques that I royally bungled my first few times. I don’t do a ton of filleting so it’s a slow process of little victories. My first challenge was not knowing how to get the epoxy into the joint and not knowing how much to put in. I’m still trying to perfect that last bit. Second was finding the right tool. As I explained in the video, a standard tongue depressor was often too small. I recall one very misguided attempt at using a light bulb. I also tried using wax paper as a peel ply to terrible effect, however I have heard of others using actual peel ply to good effect but I don’t believe it. Perhaps for applying fibreglass tape over a cured fillet, yes. Peel ply is a synthetic non-stick fabric that is used over epoxied surfaces for various applications. Worst idea yet. I think I even tried applying fibreglass tape over and uncured fillet in an attempt to do everything in one shot. I’ve tried to block that fiasco from my memory banks so I’m not even sure it actually happened. As I tried to convey in the video, here is currently my best advice: Concentrate on getting corners filled cleanly both in bead application and tooling. Work from corners out and if you have multiple fillets meeting in one corner, maybe stagger the job between cures. You might get two fillets in one corner clean in one shot but guaranteed you’ll kick yourself when you mess it all up on the third. Try to tool as little as possible. Try to clean up as much as possible without touching the fillet. Use course sandpaper to shape the central surface of the fillet and finer paper to feather in the edges.
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