What is the inside info on Solarez UV cure polyester resin ? Is it any good ?
Solar Uv resin is mainly used for people that arent to familar with the catalyst mixtures needed but it works great and you dont have to worry about your resin geling up on you. I feel its just as strong at mixing resin with catalyst. I have the proper mzing ratios if you still need it?
I dont know what you mean about inside info, but if you aren't using UV or photo initiating resin you are hurting yourself.
For a few years after I heard about this stuff i thought " Bah how could that be any good"? Always resisting the prompts from the reps. then one day I thought I'd give it a try and now I couldn't do without it. Flip times of minutes instead of hours and brighter stronger laminations.
There are a few companies that make the additives but they are all very similar and a lot of guys have their favourites like everything in the industry.
Try it and you wont do without it again. Less VOC's, less acetone to clean up quick lam times etc.
You'll still want to catalise for dark logo's and fin rovings or anything the UV cant penetrate.
No doubt it does make it easier on the inexperienced. But it is also one of the best kept secrets in the industry. Strong, fast and cured the same day. There are a few little tricks regarding color, lams(stickers) etc I think most of those can be found in the archives. No acetone needed and it can be catalyzed. Save the leftover resin and re-use. If you set up your rack with a drip tray you will be able to recycle the excess resin.
damn good stuff. I froth on it.
I'm ready to make the jump to UV laminating, just bought a packet of the UV catalyst you mix with one gallon of resin. Any quality differences between mixing it myself and the stuff that comes already mixed?
None. Just mix thorughly. Don't let any UV light source get to it while using. No light rays coming thru a window or hole in the wall. When I have left over in a pot I usually put a towel over it for short term storage, just to make sure no UV gets to it. You can walk it outside or set it on a rack outside. It will go off on an overcast or cloudy day just slower. Goes off in a couple of minutes on a sunny day. A UV box is always a good thing to have and can be built fairly cheap. You can also use UV to hot coat. I can give you the details on the hotcoat process if you decide to use it for that. It just takes a little timing. You can lam, hotcoat and sand a board in one day easy.
thank-you for your support guys...
and being open-minded.
i rep solarez in florida.
One thing I was told about the UV resins is that because you’re not mixing in a catalyst that evaporates you get a stronger cure, and it’s almost immediate - no waiting for weeks for the resin to fully cure.
What do you do for fin box installs with the UV resin? Add MEKP?
Thanks
~Brian
Some of the UV resins are dual cure, meaning you can add MEKP. I’ve mostly used the UV vinylester resin because it’s stronger and more flexible; but I use epoxy for finboxes and plugs.
Lately I’ve been toying with the idea of jumping onto the Resin-X bandwagon but i’m a bit intimidated by it.
Hi
I’m Gary from Solarez. I’ve tried to post a couple of times before but my posting got lost somehow. I think maybe I did it on Netscape and the browser wasn’t up to date 'cuz they stopped supporting Mac.
Anyway, I’ll try to stop in more often and help out when I can. I had a few posts before asking about our ZEROVOC resin for EPS cores.
The polyester and vinyl ester are pretty easy to use. The vinyl ester is a great resin that is very , very strong - great for a kite board or a lightweight comp surfboard.
There are definitely a few techniques that can eliminate the dimpling of the surface or the tackiness of the surface or sealing an EPS blank or balsa etc etc.
In a nutshell, photoinitiators are a much stronger crosslinker than MEKP. They can do the same work and more in 1/10 the time
If there is anything I can help with, please don’t hesitate to ask. Also my personal e-mail is solartech@solarez.com
Gary
Exactly----------Use it as a UV resin when and where you can. But in circumstance where little or no UV can get to the resin-----------use MEK peroxide. I used to use Q-cell on fin sets, but have gone to white gel-coat the last few years. Catalyize it as UV light cannot penetrate the white gel coat or the depth of the route out. UV can be used just like standard poly with MEKP.
So to clarify …In the case of sun cure resins with the uv catalyst already added…can MEKP be added without issue? I’m currently tackling a fin box repair for the first time and trying to sort all this info out. It still amazes me that the manufacturers of these products don’t make this information easier to track down.Thank you for the info thus far…and next time I’m purchasing y resins you can bet I won’t be using suncure again …good to see a solarez rep on here helping their end users out.
Yes you can
Watch the vids on the solarez site, it’s all in there (in this case in the finbox install part)
Also great stuff for when you’re working in cold temps (like New England, it’s about 5 degrees F outside cold). It’s challenging, but with a heating blanket you can at least still make do. Glassed a few in the dead of winter last year in an outdoor shed with no heater, and they came out great.
Seems to me that you haven’t optimized your process parameters, it looks
like you are applying too much laser for too long so diffraction is an
issue. In stereolithography the idea is to apply just enough laser to
cure only a small portion on the top. So increase your speed or decrease
your laser power.
| UV Resin |
Um, WTF!?
Lasers now!?
Mediators!!!
Um, moderators maybe?
On the video when doing the hotcoat it looks like the resin is fully cured when taking off the masking tape from the laps.
Surely you would take off the tape after a minute just as the resin has gelled? Or am i missing something?