Flooring epoxy is 1/2 the price of West Systems here.
I’ve used it before and it worked OK but that board had a lot of errors in it so I can’t say for sure how it handled.
I’m interested in Swaylocks opinions on it.
Flooring epoxy tends to be thinner and often with a blue tint. There’s many types… here’s a data sheet for one I found locally which is different to the last stuff I used.
Can the manufacturer provide the mechanical values, so you can compare it to something like West or Resin Research or ???
Hardness
Tensile Strength
Tensile Modulus
Tensile Elongation
Compressive Strength
Flexural Strength
Flexural Modulus
Heat Deflection Temperature
I would be afraid that the properties that makes the resin good for painting floors may make it a poor candidate for a high performance composite lamination going into a marine environment. And after all the work of making a board, why jeopardize it by cheapening out the resin?
I tried general purpose and tool making resins early on in an attempt to buy local and save money. Things got way better (ease of use, cure time, color, smell) when I began to use ‘surfboard’ epoxy- Resin Research Kwik Kick. I have since tried Greenroom Old #7 and have a sample from a local manufacturer but I have not done any direct comparisons between them.
10hour cure time and 5-7 days to fully cure, good luck with that. Your going to need a very stable air temp controlled room if your doing eps with that.
Thin and clean with water huh??? what is this stuff
What you show is a paint. A bit off resin, pigments and additives (thinner, extender, “solvent”). The aim of paint is to glue (resin) color (pigment) flat (additive) on a surface. The ended product have low stiffness and high stretch to break, dépend of proportion of mix. More resin = thicker and harder/stiffer coat. In paint most of mix is a solvent that evaporate to allow a nice even spread off paint film. In last paint Tech like here solvent is water, so no voc product according to normes. Pigmented resin is dispersed in water like in acrylic or aquarethane paint. Long to dry because water is a long évaporation solvant. Dry hot place reduce drying time.
I used a self leveling epoxy for table tops as a gloss coat once. Took all day to harden, but it was glass slick. I don’t think I’d ever use that for anything but the final gloss.
Thanks lemat and all.
That one I picked was not a good example.
I’m wondering if the previous stuff I found in just got lucky with. I bought it from a flooring place but it was probably a structural epoxy and I just did well on price.
Thanks lemat. I can see in have to be careful about this.
Worth a few tests… Only if can get it in small quantities though.
There’s also wood epoxy sealer which is a lot cheaper too. If making a compsand I wonder if that makes sense somewhere or whether it’s wasted weight. I didn’t find a data sheet for any of the epoxies which aren’t marked as structural yet.
Buying structural in bulk from boat suppliers can get a decent price but you got to find a place selling to boat builders rather than yachties and have to buy 20L at a time. If I bought that much I’d worry about crystallisation which… Although you can warm up to fix… Isn’t something you want with such a big price outlay… Well, it makes me a bit nervous.
So basically the stuff that’s cheaper is cheaper simply because s not really epoxy right? - it is mixed with drying properties. Now, that makes it weaker no doubt but perhaps it’s still stronger than poly resin.
I had a dig through the archives and found some discussions with xps sealing that mention this all In passing but didn’t actually test the resin and glass combo itself, just the adhesion to the foam.
perhaps that could have a lot of strength if combined with glass. The combination counts. Even if the same strength as poly it might deform in a more favourable way and allows styrene core types. I guess I might just have to try… But I don’t want to buy a lot of it on a test. If I get some that is definitely not the usual structural epoxy I will share the results.
Oh and the economics of this won’t make sense for a lot of people in big countries such as Australia, USA,china because decent epoxy is at a fair price. This is more I’m thinking for remote areas where you’re limited in choice and price is a pain - partly due to hazardous goods rules but also customs charges.
Question: is zero voc resin easier to transport over borders?
I have used it on 6 boards total, 4 boards successfully, 2 i’m not so sure of?! The last 4 are still on the go. The first brand was useless but last 4 boards have been laminated, filler coat etc with DPM clear epoxy. 3.5-4 hours gel time. Not ideal, but have to work with what I can get. Many suppliers won’t entertain posting to Scottish highlands & if they do it’s crazy expensive. Made my current daily driver for anything under head height, exclusively using this brand.
Most flooring epoxy is meant to be self leveling. Laminating resins are thixotropic. Viscosity wont be right for a proper layup. If its an aqueous base coating (dilute with water) it not a thermoset either. Its not reacting/crosslinking Like Lemat said… Its not a “cure time” its a dry time for all the water to evaporate out. We this call a dispersion coating. They pre-react the polymer then use some surfactants to help suspended it in water (or solvent). Minimal cross-linking means poor flex-strength, but better abrasion resistance can be achieved (intermolecular lubricity). Its designed for floors after-all. Because it is a large pre-reacted polymer in an aqueous carrier you’ll also get poor interface between your foam surface and the resin. Recipe for delam.
Sorry to hear about those Scottish Highlands postage hassles again Spey.
I hear about this a lot. If and when I get to the UK again I’d like to look into whether a remailing service would be viable - send goods to somewhere acceptable and then drive them up to somewhere more north for people to drive and collect… Has that ever been discussed.
Glad to hear it work for you despite what others have said.
Blanksmith is saying it’s weaker and less viscous. Did you find any problem with fisheyes? Maybe a vacuum bag without peelply might help.
I don’t think all flooring epoxy has the same high amount of water content and dry time. I think the stuff I used wasn’t flooring epoxy and I just got a good price which I can’t repeat.
The price of epoxy varies a lot. The main difficulty is that the chemical makeup is what makes it what it is but this isn’t always clear from information in the shop/on a website. Still, that seems has to be the way if you want to know what you’re getting.
There used to be cheap crappy epoxies out there which West systems was a response to but this was many years ago and I don’t see that as the same kind of risk these days… Perhaps the economics has made it not profitable to produce those crappy epoxies any more
Hi there Jago. Fairly sure it’s been discussed, It’s been brought up in Parliament numerous times. It sucks that half of what I need to get, wont entertain posting up here & it’s always written in big bold red writing “Will not post to Scottish highlands” Anyway it is what it is!
Regards fish eyes etc, I’ve never had a problem with the dpm brand, only really been burned once with useless epoxy. Although when laminating you can get dry spots in the cloth because of the longer gel time if not vigilant. The 3 boards were made using this exclusively apart from the LB where it was for a friend & I only used it for the filler coats. All 3 surfing well & going strong. Just managed to get 6kg of Gurit epoxy which I like & have used before (It’s not flooring epoxy) and I do prefer it, but it’s way more expensive to get.
All the best. Slanj
