I haven’t gotten my fill coats to kick in an hour using the X-55 with the Resin Research. Does anyone have any tips?
I’ve been mixing it into my sanding coats at roughly 1/2 cc per 6 oz. of mixed resin. Should I add more or less?
I tried emailing Mr. Loehr at RR and searching the archives but no luck.
Mahalo.
Hey DMP,
The accelerator goes in at 1cc per ounce of mixed material maximum. You are currently at 1/12th that, that’s why you are not seeing the speed-up in cure.
I only use the accelerator for epoxy pins/pigmented panels, as the cloudiness that forms when you mix it in sometimes goes away when it cures, sometimes doesn’t. It does work, though. For hotcoats, you can flip in about 90 minutes at 75 degrees F if you heat the resin before mixing to 120 degrees F.
On clear sanded finish boards without a lot of logos, you won’t see the cloudiness as much, or maybe not at all.
JSS
Mahalo, mahalo!
I knew something wasn’t right. The guy I bought it from gave me the wrong mixing ratios and I couldn’t find anything on the RR site.
Thank you for the extra info about the clouding. I read up on the MSDS on the X-55. Apparently it is Hydrocholoric Acid. From my limited chemistry that is a strong acid. I can see how a strong acid could cause the parrifin to form a percipitate.
I’ve been using 1cc per ounce of additive F instead of 2cc on the sanding coats on the boards with dark colors. At 90 degrees I’ve been getting alot of cloudiness in the kicked sanded coats with 2cc of the F.
Thanks again.
“I’ve been using 1cc per ounce of additive F instead of 2cc on the sanding coats on the boards with dark colors. At 90 degrees I’ve been getting alot of cloudiness in the kicked sanded coats with 2cc of the F.”
Man, I know what you mean. F is great stuff except for the smell and the cloudiness. If there was a way I could get away with not using it, I would, but it makes things so easy on hot and gloss coats…how does everything go with just 1cc of F?
JSS
Thanks again for the info. I just did a sanding coat with the 1cc of X-55 per ounce of mixed resin and it was ready to sand in about 90 minutes. If I had heated it up it probably would have been good to go in half that time.
I stopped using the Additive F at 2cc’s a while ago and just go with the 1cc ratio. Really no difference in the sanding. I lowered the ratio after having wax chunks form in the kicked resin at temps over 85 degrees. I even stopped adding the F in the lams.
A trick I learned from a sander was to take a clean rag with DNA and wipe the sanding coat down to take off the film of wax. I can get 100 grit to cut very quickly with zero build up on the paper. Another sander said he starts with 150, but I found it too slow.
If I get time I might try to see if I can get some parrafin sp? to disolve into the X-55. If I can then I’ll give it a shot to see if I can get away from the xylene in the F. Either that or try making my own F with a lower concentration of wax. The cloudiness on colored boards isn’t too bad if you stay away from dark colors.
Great stuff! Thanks for the info. I’ll give the next board I glass a try with just the 1cc in the hot and gloss, and none in the lam…
No cloudiness from the X-55, though? I would see the cloudiness as soon as the X-55 was in solution, and sometimes it would go away during cure, other times not, that’s why I only use it for pinlines/panels, where the pigment would hide the cloudiness…
Maybe it’s the combo of F and X-55 that’s not so good, because I have never used X-55 by itself, always used it with 2cc F…hmmm…
Good stuff,
JSS