Cleanup!

After sufficient time for epoxy curing I could move on to cleaning the composite.

This particular epoxy exhibits severe amine blush after curing so before I touched it with any tools I cleaned the whole assembly with decent amount of acetone. This shall prevent the “wax” (amine) from being taken deeper into wood when I start to further work on it.

Although it is said that acetone is not removing the blush completely (water and soap is recommended) I needed to use acetone since, in freezing temperatures in my workshop, I have no water available.

I don’t want to use my hand tools on cured epoxy so instead I used my “el-cheapo” electric plane. This tool I got for free and it is a real piece of junk so I feel no regrets in further wasting it on such job.

Due to the fact that wood was floating during gluing I got a stack where all elements are shifted in different directions. Not a catastrophe since I’ve left them over-dimensioned but it caused me more work to remove so much material on both faces. It also caused that I no longer have any true face - nothing is square any more on this assembly.

I need to be smarter next time and make wooden guiding pins which will index all jointing faces and prevent any shifting.

The next step is to square this up again and bring down to required 74mm thickness. That will be accomplished with hand planes again - much better control, no more wood dust and much more fun!