unfinished tiki 38 project ? allergy to epoxy

[Eva Zvonickova]

Hello wharram builders and friends!

Me and my partner Ondra started building our tiki 38 last year in january. We have most of the starboard hull finished now, but we had to stop building about a month ago due to Ondras health problems. 

From the start of the build, Ondra has been having some respiratory problems and skin rashes. Recently, things got quite serious (he was basicaly choking every night), so after visiting a doctor, who made some tests, he was diagnosed with asthma. It looks like it is all coming from the epoxy ( we are still waiting for some allergology tests). He is getting his asthma treated, but so far any exposure to epoxy is just making it worse, so we had to stop building. 

But for sure we dont want to give up the project, so we came up with a few ideas. Because there is not much missing to finish the first hull, we could buy an unfinished project ( like one hull finished, preferably in Europe ...) and finish the rest of the boat in some kind of space suit?  or outside in good weather with lots of fresh air ( which would reduce the possible time for building to just a few month in a year here in Czech)

Or maybe we could pay someone to build the second hull, which of course would be a question of money for us.... do you maybe know of someone who could do it and guess the costs of it?

Our last idea so far was to build the second hull from aluminium. We have a friend who welds alu. We found out that the material costs would be very similar. What do you think of that, one hull ply and one alu???

The last option would be to sell our project and and start saving money to buy a boat....which would be very sad, because we gave so much energy into building our boat and already love her (even if she is just an unfinished hull).

Thank you everyone for reading this and any ideas and suggestions will be  greatly appreciated.

Fair winds to your sails.

Eva and Ondra

[Rogerio Martin]

I suggest, the space suit. the best mask money can buy. Hire someone to sanding. And do not handle silica or micro spheres. Buy mass ready for  fillets. always use vinil gloves.

[Penn D]

Also, try changing the type of expoxy. Different brand may help?

[Richard Flegg]

I second trying a different brand of epoxy. There are some good water based epoxy out there that are virtually as strong as West epoxy as well as other amine based epoxy. Another tip is to leave epoxy for several days to cure before sanding. "Green" epoxy dust is particularly nasty. I always use nitrile gloves, the main thing is not to use latex. I know of someone that always used vinil over nitrile to be doubly secure. Take extra care, don't give up!