: Hi;

: You might want to check my reply to the post above also. The difference
: between laminating and finishing resin is the addition of wax and styrene
: to make the finish layer cure hard (Keeps the air off of it). The shop
: where I got my resin gets it in 55 gallon drums (with lots of UV
: protectant) without wax - When they use it for laminating, they use it
: straight. When it's time to finish a polyester or epoxy layup, they add
: the wax. The wax and styrene mixture is sold separately, I found it in a
: few places on the Internet some months ago. These guys just added some to
: the resin they sold me.

: As to strength, we had a thread on this some time ago, and one of the posters
: reported that the tech he spoke with at one epoxy mfr said that the
: polyester resin should actually mechanically bond better than varnish. The
: local company puts it on epoxy surfboards that see a lot of abuse, and
: they haven't seen a problem in the many years they've been doing it. I saw
: some OLD surfboards in their collection, and they still looked mighty
: good. Epoxies from the 60's were almost brown, however, apparently they
: couldn't make it too clear back then . . . ;-)

: Best Regards, Spidey

Spidey,

Several times you have indicated that you would be using polyester resin as a finish coat. I thought someone would have warned you about polyestermites by now, but it hasn't happened, so I thought I had better do it. I know they are really bad in Florida.

It's not really surprising that there has been no warning, as polyestermites are a really sneaky little critter, and most people have never seen one and don't know anything about them. They look just like the polyester they are eating, so unless you have some way to detect them, you could be looking at what appears to be a really nice finish and it would be polyestermites busy munching away.

The problem is, when they run out of polyester to eat, they leave, taking your beautiful finish with them. That's why you don't see polyester suits much any more. Some guy would be walking down the street in a well tailored polyester suit and the polyestermites would eat the last of the polyester, then leave, and the guy is standing there in his skivies, unless he was wearing polyester skivies....well, you get the picture. It was embarrasing, and there were a lot of complaints, but no solution to the problem was ever found, so polyester suits just kind of died out.

Fortunately for you, you have used epoxy to build your boat. If you had used polyester throughout, you could go out one day and pick up your boat to go paddling and end up with an arm load of disconnected strips. Polyestermites don't eat epoxy. It gives them really bad gas and tends to give them away.

Detecting them can be a really vexing problem. If I were you, and going to use a clear finish, I would mix a couple of small batches with some bright colored dye in them, maybe dayglo yellow and dayglo orange. Then I would sprinkle little spots of these colors all over the boat. That way, when you check your boat, if the colored spots are moving, then you know you have polyestermites and you can get the exterminator in to get rid of them. You also might check with your local surf board place to see how they handle the problem.

I thought you ought to be warned. Hope this helps. Good paddling

James