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Re: Epoxy: Epoxy blues...
By:Jay Babina
Date: 2/19/2003, 10:03 am
In Response To: Epoxy: Epoxy blues... (Mike and Rikki)

You have to remember, you're not doing a lay-up but a sheathing application. With the type of use we builders do, the wood is the weakest link in the bond. If you pull off the cloth wood would most likely come with it. The epoxy bond is thin and sometimes it will break from the cloth any you'll see the weave pattern in the epoxy.

That's why it's important to not sand too fine and to use an epoxy that's not too thick. And as I said before, epoxy takes weeks to gain full hardness.

I remember Eric (Nick's brother) telling me how he stripped the glass skin from an old strip canoe done with polyester just by pulling the entire thing off.

If you were trying for the absolute best bond, you would wet the wood good and do a wet layup into wet epoxy with cloth, insuring no starvation and full saturation. And you would fill the weave in the next 5 hrs. Filling the weave is like putting nail heads on all the epoxy that has come through the weave.

I say this once again to you. I believe you could pull off any epoxy sheathing in a few days with any epoxy on any substrate. And.. maybe you could pull it off in a year. If the weave is filled and real hard, it's enormously different. Sheathing is meant to protect, bond and stiffen - in that order. If your left over epoxy is hardening in the mixing cup and eventually you can sand it, Your OK.

In our normal usage of our vessels, the type of force you're testing with (un-sheathing by pulling it off) doesn't exist - that's why it works out so great for what we do. In other words, you're testing it in a way that it doesn't get used.

Messages In This Thread

Epoxy: Epoxy blues...
Mike and Rikki -- 2/19/2003, 1:05 am
Re: Epoxy: Epoxy blues...
Shawn Baker -- 2/19/2003, 4:39 pm
Re: Epoxy: Epoxy blues...
Mike and Rikki -- 2/19/2003, 8:24 pm
Re: Epoxy: Epoxy blues...
Bill Price -- 2/19/2003, 6:47 pm
Re: Epoxy: Epoxy blues...
Shawn Baker -- 2/20/2003, 11:55 am
Re: Epoxy: Epoxy blues...
sage -- 2/19/2003, 12:08 pm
Re: Epoxy: Epoxy blues...
Gordon Snapp -- 2/19/2003, 7:53 pm
I do not know.
sage -- 2/19/2003, 8:06 pm
Re: Epoxy: Epoxy blues...
Jay Babina -- 2/19/2003, 10:03 am
Re: Epoxy: Epoxy black and blues...
Mike and Rikki -- 2/19/2003, 1:17 pm
Re: Epoxy: Epoxy black and blues...
Mike Loriz -- 2/21/2003, 10:33 am
yo, Mike what can you tell me about this area?
sage -- 2/19/2003, 4:54 pm
Re: yo, Mike what can you tell me about this area?
Mike and Rikki -- 2/19/2003, 8:21 pm