Builders' Forum Archives

Smoothing fillets

Posted by Mark Camp on May 8, 2004

I had much trouble with some fillets today, couldn't get them at all smooth. The more I worked them, the worse they got. This has happened before. As an experiment, I let them harden for an hour, and in a few bad areas, laid waxed paper on and smoothed them by rubbing the waxed paper, with filleting tools and with finger. The waxed paper was stuck at this point, would not pull off without pulling up the goo.

I pulled off the waxed paper easily an hour of so later, and was extremely pleased with the result so far. In fact they far superior to any fillets I have done previously. Perfectly shaped, with a glossy finish.

I went ahead and smoothed out more areas, in this case just laying the waxed paper on, smoothing, then moving it. It no longer was sticking to the epoxy. All the bumps, ridges, pockets, and grooves could be removed this way, although these second areas did not end up with the perfect, glossy fillet of the first areas. they were still better than my best previous work.

My question: if you have tried this: will there be problems later, with this approach? Esp. from wax on the surface?