Anyone willing to share about vinyl ester resin? I read that it is much stronger than polyester, but is brown, and UV catalyst and MEKP set it off. Does it wet out and work into the glass similar to the Simlar resin (tongue twister)? If you tape and cut the laps with the vinylester, does it look like a brown/tan tint job? Seems like that could look really nice. Is it clear enough to set black outline laminates in (like a light tint job)? Does it clean up with acetone? The vinyl ester resin sounded interesting and worth a go. i would like to try it. Thanks richard
Richard. I glassed my last two boards with vinylester resin.They are both old school 50/50 railers.I wanted to make them appear old. I did cut laps and pinlines. The resin is brown, as if you added tint. You need to pull the excess resin off as it will show up darker under the next layer.The rail overlaps get darker with each layer. Its basicly the same as tint glassing. It wets out and works the same as poly.You do need to use an slow reaction catalyst. If you use normal mekp it gasses a little and gets frothy. It has a slower gel time than sb poly but it cures quicker once gelled. It is lighter than sb poly and stronger. I hotcoat with sb poly and finish the board as normal.Clean up with acetone. It is used in boatbuilding and swimming pool construction it has a high chemical resistance. Speak to a supplier who supplies the boatbuilders and they should be able to formulate it to suit the gel times that you require. I have also been making fins using v/ester they are noticably lighter than poly fins and stronger. They still have flex and look good too. Hope this info helps. David.
VE resin needs to be covered for UV protection, does not perform well in sunlight. Also you tend to need to make sure you catalyze it at at least 2%. It is much easier to undercure VE compared to S249A. You need to use an MEKP designed for VE. Both HP 90 and Norac 925 will work fine. VE tends to have foaming issues, another reason the correct catalyst is needed. A lot of VE’s will come unpromoted. If you buy an unpromoted VE, in most cases you will need to promote it with Cobalt and DMA. DMA is a very nasty poison. Personally I would just buy a quality epoxy designed for surfboards, it is made with the same chemical backbone as VE. Look up Resin Research in the archives.
Sluggo is right. VE is great stuff but needs to be heat cured and has issues with UV and color. Great for filiment winding and some molding applications. Just not the right stuff for boards.
I have been working with vinylester resin since the early 80’s, and in that time I have only worked for one company where we post cured vinylester resin.The reason being we were using super slow resin doing full laminates in carbon fiber and vacume bagging pvc foam cores, building 18’skiffs.In all the other aplications the VE was cured at ambient temps. I agree that it is not uv stablized, but how long would it take to bee affected. One of my boards is over 2 years old and it still has a glossy finish.I have restored boards built in the 60’s and with nothing more than 400,600,1200,1500 wet and dry and a polish the resin has come up like new. I dont think the resin used back then was uv stablized.
check out tombstonesurf.com - they use vinyl ester on polyurethane foam - very light and strong boards - i surfed one for a year without getting any dings (incl pressure dents) at all!