So I decided to get some and try it out. Laminated over the weekend. It’s alot like epoxy but generates no heat. Which will be great for fin boxes.
Has anyone tried it out yet?
rick.
Where can we get it? Website, contact? More detailed review?
JSS
Matt Campbell @
Yeah sorry, I’m at work right now and don’t really have time to go too into it. Matt has been so helpful! He walked me through the entire process. He is touring the US right now doing demos, so there’s always a chance he’s in your hood at somepoint.
Be back with more when I get a chance.
Rick
Quote:
So I decided to get some and try it out. Laminated over the weekend. It’s alot like epoxy but generates no heat. Which will be great for fin boxes.
Has anyone tried it out yet?
rick.
I’ve done a board with it, and I love it. I guess I should post about it, but the board isn’t 100% finished yet, so I wanted to hold off. Anyone who has any questions or wants to try some, feel free to ask or contact me – IIRC, there is some resin-X available right now in San Diego, but not a lot.
what material is it?
An: epoxy, polyester, vinylester, polyurethane, … ?
Urethane
I’ve had a couple of people ask about resin-x, so I should post some more details.
OK, with apologies to rickrick for ruining his thread with my incompetence
and with advance warnings to the rest of you – I’m really not good at this stuff…turn back now…pregnant women and those who may become pregnant, etc, etc…
Started with my last 6’8"D from KingMac, because I was going to try for some fishy relaxed rocker.
I’ll skip the shaping stuff, I’m a menace with a planer anyways, but this is what I ended up with:
It’s about 6’2" x 21" x 2 11/16" Had the local print shop print out an Aku template and traced it onto the blank. Anyone crazy enough to want one of my designs is welcome to a copy of the .brd file.
Single concave starting about mid-feet, 1/8" max depth.
Tape it off, and it’s time for the fun part!!
Glassing! If I could glass worth a damn, I think I would do it for a living.
The Good Stuff:
I took to heart Keith Melville’s advice from his recent BBQ: “Don’t let them talk you into too many colors”
Following Matt’s advice, I thinned the lam coat on this one with styrene, although since then I’ve found that heat works fine, too:
Although you can thin resin-X up to ~10% by volume with styrene, I only went to about 5%. Flowed like a champ, great wet out – went right through the two deck layers, no bubbles, no froth no worries!
Here’s the fallout:
I call it “Alien Vomit Battlefield” and don’t say I didn’t warn you ;>)
It was my virgin swirl, and I’ll never forget her. I can’t take pix to save my life, but the colors are so vivid I started laughing while I was doing the pours. Resin-x really separates the colors like crazy. Only my incompetent technique caused mudding. All of you skilled swirlers are going to go nuts with this stuff.
Then, when you think it can’t get any better, the stuff cures, and the clarity is ridiculous. Resin-X has insane gloss, no tricks required. I’ve come to look at the stuff as the good parts of epoxy and poly combined into one resin.
I used the “slow” hardener, and it was in the mid 60s in my garage at the time of glassing.
My friend wrote down the times of mix for each of the colors, and I had at least 25 minutes for each – some went to 30 minutes. There’s an intermediate stage when you can feel the viscosity increasing, and you’ve still got at least 5 minutes from that point, maybe more. It doesn’t go crazy hard instantly, but it gets thicker and thicker.
Using the “slow” stuff, I could have flipped this board, at those temps, in 90 minutes or so. I wasn’t checking every minute, so probably sooner. I was sanding not long after that, which was way convenient. If you use the fast stuff, you’ll be flying through production, and you’d better be able to move quickly – if you’re a novice like me, stick with the slow.
Like rickrick said, no exotherm worries at all, and leaving it in the pot is actually the preferred way to lam – no need to rush everything out. It doesn’t froth as easily as epoxy, which is also a plus for those of us who are competency-challenged.
I thinned the hotcoat at about the same %, maybe a touch more. It came out so crystal-clear I can’t believe it. I’ve since sanded it part of the way, and found it sands like a normal poly hotcoat.
OK, now it’s your turn (collectively) – I’m looking for fin configuration recommendations for this board. With a little over 4" of nose rocker, and just under 2 inches of tail rocker, should I go thruster? quad? 2+1? Bonzer?
Thanks!
not sure the actually material. would have to go read the packaging again. but it has all different kinds of properties. the resin kicks faster in small amounts in high humidity. temperature doesn’t has as much effect on it like epoxy which is pretty interesting. there is fast which gives you about 15 min of workable time and slow that gives you about 20 - 30 or so. so most of us here prob won’t get anything out out fast. slow is way faster then RR fast. it start to cure as you work. and yeah, it’s really flexible.
Does it smell bad like polyester?
Why isn’t the industry using it? Without styrene added it is be usable with polystyrene. Is it not as strong or…? It is cheaper than epoxy so does anyone know the disadvantages?
I only hear good things here, but there are some big disadvantages. I just feel it. PU-resins are on the market for a long time now.
Be careful with that big ol’ can of styrene, that is some nasty stuff.
Amazing colors for your first try!
no it has no smell. although i was told to put xylene in it to thin it out a bit and that is not ‘wife friendly’. so looking into another option. one big reason i use epoxy is because i work in my basement with a window and fan. so can’t be smelling up the house. i’m waiting to hear if an additive is even necessary. someone on this thread said heat worked well for them and since heat won’t kick the resin like epoxy does sounds like a good idea.
What was it like price wise?
Glad you started this thread, Rick…
All the physical properties I’m hearing here make it sound really good, but I’m a little gunshy on materials that don’t provide full disclosure. So just the name “Resin X” scares me. Could be I’m just paranoid. I tried to get some detailed info, but no luck. Maybe it will come out here on Sways.
Until I see the MSDS sheet, I’d take all the precautions I’d take with poly.
Again, I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I’m really interested in learning more.
Its still going through some fine tuning, BUT the ‘industry’ has started using it. See the ‘Surfy Surfy’ blog over at Moonlight to confirm that. Other shapers and glassers will surely be using it too. Moonlight has been doing most of the testing, from what I’ve heard.
Even if you using the styrene to thin it, there isn’t any reason to be any more cautious than you would with polyester. Use your organic respirator and gloves and you are fine. The isocyanates found in polyurethanes are an issue in the paint industry because the unreacted polyurethane is atomized during spraying and then can be inhaled. In our uses its not atomized and can’t be inhaled while using it, so if you keep it off your skin (just like poly or epoxy) you are fine. Fully reacted polyurethane is no longer chemically active so sanding shouldnt be an issue.
Finally, something you can use on EPS and still have production times like poly.
-Jon
I’m pretty sure Matt has the MSDS sheets available, he couldnt sell it legally without them. Polyurethane isnt new, its been around for decades. Its just never been used for surfboard construction until now.
Jon
Quote:
Glad you started this thread, Rick…
All the physical properties I’m hearing here make it sound really good, but I’m a little gunshy on materials that don’t provide full disclosure. So just the name “Resin X” scares me. Could be I’m just paranoid. I tried to get some detailed info, but no luck. Maybe it will come out here on Sways.
Until I see the MSDS sheet, I’d take all the precautions I’d take with poly.
Again, I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I’m really interested in learning more.
Quote:
Its still going through some fine tuning, BUT the ‘industry’ has started using it. See the ‘Surfy Surfy’ blog over at Moonlight to confirm that. Other shapers and glassers will surely be using it too. Moonlight has been doing most of the testing, from what I’ve heard.
yes…as a matter of fact, matt is at Moonlight right now doing some testing. i look forward to having an opportunity to test it out for myself.
etmo, I like that board you are doing. Colors are nice. Thanks rickrickrick for interesting thread. Mahalo,Larry
Quote:
etmo, I like that board you are doing. Colors are nice. Thanks rickrickrick for interesting thread. Mahalo,Larry
Thanks, Larry! As a fin guru, could you offer your opinion of fin configuration? Thruster, quad, etc?
etmo, Don’t wish you should of ,could of, just do it all and have fun. Mahalo,Larry
Larry – thanks, that’s a brilliant idea!
rickrick - you can thin it with heat! Works fine, and doesn’t speed up the cure as significantly as it does with epoxy, although it does speed it up somewhat. Just
make sure you only heat “part A” and never “part B”.
deanbo – price is like RR epoxy
Hans – regarding your statement about urethanes, it’s kind of like resin research. Epoxies were on the market for a zillion years, but were never that wonderful for making surfboards. Resin research really helped make an epoxy with characteristics better suited to surfboard making.
Same with resin-X – Matt, the chemist, is a Great Lakes surfer (!) himself, so he took it upon himself to make a resin that was specifically tailored to be an awesome surfboard making resin.
NJ Surfer – yes, there’s full MSDS sheets and physical data, too. What’s better, is that the physical data actually has meaning – so many manufacturers don’t properly qualify their numbers, so they are meaningless… As for the “scary” name, it was dubbed “resin-X” by Peter St Pierre of Moonlight Glassing, and Matt decided to honor and thank Peter by keeping that name. If you ever meet Peter, you’ll see he’s not scary at all 