Blanks

General Discussion
1

I have been noticing that many guys are making and or experimenting with Styrofaom, epoxy, and the like. I am non-biased, since I have not made any conclusions yet.

I know all the disadvantages of it all and still there is no answer as to what direction the industry is going. It reminds me of the early digital cameras. Peaple did like them from the inseption, but they had there pit falls. Now, it is clear that that is the way the industry went.

With foams, it is still up in the air…in my mind. Extruded blanks (such as Epoxy Pro’s XTR0 there are delam problem…yes, still. With EPS, you have to use sealers. And with Clark, to get a light foam you get a fragile (pressure dent prone) blanks. Both do have there advantages. I like the availablity of Clark and the fact that any glass shop still glasses with polyester resin. With sryros, there is no easy way to prep (seal) a board in order to be able to glass it with Poly…the list goes on…

Guys, what we need is a foam that can handle any type of resin, one that is shapable and blemish free, one that doesn’t soak up to much water when dinged up…

SHould we ask NASA to invent such a foam??? We could absorb the price in a higher price blank for the convenience.

It is time for all, Epoxy proponebts and urethane proponents to aggree there needs to be a change or improvement in blanks.

What is your opinion?

2

You don’t need to seal EPS. And why would you want to glass it with poly?

PU/PS boards are totally viable, EPS/Epoxy boards are too. Each has its own advantages.

I don’t, though, see much advantage to making either a PU/Epoxy board or an EPS/sealer/PS board.

For me, its just about materials efficiency, performance, and cost. And being able to source all the stuff locally, without having to conform to monopolistic parts manufacturers.

3

Sometimes, to simplify is not good enough!

At UC Berkeley, all photography classes use ONLY film cameras!!! Sounds like heresy, certainly to me, but it’s true!

My bud who’s an AP photographer uses BOTH film and digital, and can’t get rid of one for the sake or convenience of the other.

Some peeps seal styro blanks with latex paint, but you have to know the technique.

Lots of peeps use poly resin on poly blanks, but some use epoxy resins.

You’re right about closed cell styro, maybe they have gotten better, but would anyone want to spend $500 for another experiement?

Like girlfriends, you have many choices, and that’s a GOOD thing!

4
Quote:
I don't, though, see much advantage to making either a PU/Epoxy board or an EPS/sealer/PS board.

PU/Epoxy… lots of reasons:

Epoxy:

well this horse has been beaten but here it goes…

  1. better for the env

  2. better for health (kind of the same)

  3. lighter/less waist

  4. easier to work with (cloth saturation, work time…)

  5. believed to be stronger (Rich Harbors results question this)

PU blank:

  1. close tolerance

  2. rocker selection

I do plan to do some EPS and sandwich.

I agree though not much argument for EPS/poly.

Poly does not even really have the cost argument going for it.

You use less resin with epoxy therefore overall cost about the same,

maybe even cheaper.

5

Not sure about using less resin with epoxy.

Possible for your first 20 glass jobs, but pretty soon, you figure it out and don’t waste as much, and you always get the resin to a warm temp before mixing in the catalyst.

At app. 70 degrees for each, I’d suspect amount used is about the same.