I’ve just started glassing a hollow wooden board with poly resin from Seabase in England. The stuff iis horribly thick and is dragging the cloth all over the place, can I thin it with anything…acetone for instance? Any help would be appreciated loads.
drop a little styrene monomer in there. and if it’s cold, a hot water bath probably wouldn’t hurt.
Excellent, that explains the gloopy thick shittyness of it, it is freezing here in Blighty. I’ll try to warm the next lot a little before adding the catalist. Thanks loads.
Just remember that heat speeds things up - only warm the resin to roughly 75 deg F, or your gunna have that stuff gelling really quick after you at the catalyst.
And before you add the sanding wax when you do the hot coat - warm the wax-in-styrene stuff before you add it, as the wax solidifies out of solution really easily at slightly lower temps, and you need to warm it to get it to disolve again.
You may already know this stuff, but thought i’d make sure. When things are cold, funny stuff happens.
Kit
I usually thin old poly resin with styrene.
Be careful no to use “waxed styrene”, which is used to thin hot coat resins.
stick the resin ina microwave for 10 - 15 seconds.
that will make the resin run like water. Just be careful not to leave it in any longer than that.
I used to boil water and then stick the container of resin in the water. this is complicated. I snagged and old microwave and i keeo that in my glassing shed. Much simpler. i warm up resin at every stage.
Drew
Hey Kit, I had wondered about this quickening the gelling time, this should be of benefit as it took hours before I could cut the laps and peel the tape last night…2.30 before I got to bed. I hadn’t considred that at all with the wax/styrene during the hot coat, so cheers, saved me making one more mistake. Big appreciation mate, thanks.
Cheers Drew, I think warming my highly toxic chemicals in the wife’s kitchen appliances might result in marital uneasiness, so I’ll stick with warming it by your original method, thanks loads for the suggestions everyone. Tonight I will try this warming of resin before glassing the bottom, I’ll let you know how it went later. Oh, and I’ll put my pullover on before I go out there, it is cccoooooold here.
Hi Jase
That Seabase stuff is really good stuff. I was glassing my BIG board in this cold weather last year. went to 1% catalyst, warmed the resin in a bowl of hot water, you will see the colour changes from purple to lighter blueish colour. I also took a hair drier and warmed the board as well, just a little in even strokes up and down the whole length and had one of those gas heaters on trying to get the temp up to around 15C. At that temp the gel time was 45mins, which was what I needed trying to glass 12 plus feet of board!
Hope this helps.
Hey Simon, yup, warming the stuff deffinately helps this time of year. That made it much more workable, I’ll try warming the board aswell this next (final deck) lam. I actually prefer a brand of resin that I got really cheap from a bud who has his own glass fibre business, it’s clearer than seabase stuff and wets out really easy but his business went tits up after MG Rover went down the pan. His supplier ws Polyfibre in Aston in Birmingham but they are quite expensive when selling to the public, but worth a look cos there resin is A. I’ll spend the extra next board and make a trip over there even though driving in Brum scares the shit out of me.
I’m warming my garage best I can but the stuff is still taking 24 hours to set up completely even with 2% cat in it.
When is this Bore thing likely to happen next? I’m gagging for some of this, it looks mad.
Jase, you’ve missed the boat for this year on the bore…, next year now, March is the month, dates can be found on Russel Higgins Severn-Bore page, www.severn-bore.co.uk Last decent ones were last weekend, scored a 3 miler at night, bright bright moonlight and fireworks everywhere, misty fogbanks here and there to duck under, as well as a humongous fridge that suddenly appeared out of the fog on a bend…Insane!!! Really good to also see some of the top flight surfers now surfing the river, including my mate Duncan who is all over this months’ Carve magazine. Did a night bore with him the day before they surfed 20’ Eilleens in Ireland…Mad…!
See you March then?