Mixing Xylene & Wax (Additive F?)

General Discussion
1

Hello there,

I had a query about mixing xylene & wax which I think is what additve F is? Just after some rough ratios and if it’s particular xylene and/or wax. The reason I ask is I’ve had better results with mixing my own surfacing agent for polyester resin (thanks Kokua). So I wondered if anyone has done the same sort of thing with epoxy and had better results than with just straight additive F.

2

Heat-up the wax in a pan.You don’t need a complete meltdown but make it soft and don’t burn it.

After that, just stick it in the xylene…It will take overnight to get a mix.You can agitate it to speed up the process.The mix is 90% xylene ,10% parafin wax…roughly.Herb

3

Cheers.

4

That’s crazy !!

Xylene will destroy your brain, amongst other things

Why not just use straight epoxy ?

.

5

It’s all good for the boards…

…Bad for the body.

6

I know Roy. But your not supposed to drink or snort it?

Anyway, brain cells are over rated. You can be missing almost 95% of them and still become President of the US.

-Jay

7

Are the the ratios for poly surface agent (styrene and parafine wax ) the same 90- 10

8

I use 4% on the lowend …12% on the high…and…anything in between will work.

9

ummm… xylene and styrene have low flash points, are highly flammable, etc., right? so keep them away from significant sources of heat, unless you and your surroundings are fully insured.

there’s a simpler way if you have a little patience. I have always made my surfacing agent by razor blading shavings of paraffin into a jar or can of styrene. Then close the lid, shake well and leave it in the sun to get warm. The paraffin dissolves into the styrene and bobs your uncle (for Roy).

10

Howzit Honolulu, Same way I do it.Aloha,Kokua

11

well you did it . you found the answer to F.

12
Quote:

Anyway, brain cells are over rated. You can be missing almost 95% of them and still become President of the US.

-Jay

That’s frightening, don’t you guys care about brain damage?

I mean seriously, straight epoxy works fine, why dissolve your brains ?

13

Honolulu,

No heat in the same general location is the main rule…

…I heat my wax up is a stainless pan in the sun or other various ways including hotwater.

Heating it up is key.

After that it will just disolve easily…I like to shake it up once and awhile as well.

14

Interesting stuff! So do you just add this mixture to your epoxy batch? At what ratio? Can I just shelve this mix(xylen/parafin)? How long before it needs using up?

Thanks

Christian

15

Thanks Herb.

That trick is good to know.

ratios are in the epoxy primer post . . . its cc’s to oz’s of hardner. I use the lam one for all my epoxy needs. 1cc per oz of hardner

16

Hey thanks for all the tips here.

I used the 9:1 xylene to wax solution.

I heated up the wax in a makeshift aluminium foil container and poured it in to the xylene. No explosions! awesome.

I only mix up 200 ml at a time for the small scale I do. I would be nervous doing 4ltrs or more for sure. I’ll leave that to the pros.

I then use this up to 5% in the hot coats. Sanding is sooo much easier but it’s still epoxy so I always use a PU spray as the finish coat as I prefer polish to pro finish every time. I always seem to have sanding marks appearring when I get to 400 and then it’s too late to go back as this stuff really is a bitch to sand in my experience. I’m talking RR, CET, Kinetics, Acme, West, Ballina Res, Keahana. I’ve used all these and a few others. They all go better with wax solution but. A mate told me recently that Hawiian Epoxy or some label like that was the best he’d ever found, but I don’t know anybody with that up here near the Goldie.

Cheers