If I compromise will i ever know?!

[Thenaz007]

What about an older Prout 50 (professionally surveyed...)? They arent cheap and reportedly dont tack too well. but have a pretty good reputation for seaworthiness. Maybe a more comfortable, less performance oriented boat would be a compromise for learning while living aboard?

[fastcat435]

Originally Posted by BigCat

Fastcat, since the manufacturer of your resin doesn't publish its properties on the internet, and since you claim great things for it, I wonder if you would be willing to publish its tensile strength and elongation before breaking? Epoxy varies a great deal in these properties, and some well-respected epoxy resin have properties lower than Reichhold vinylester resins which are designed to reach maximum strength without postcuring (baking.)

Thanks,

BigCat

Hallo Big Cat

I am back from vacation and have the info for you for the Epoxy resin properties

Have a good look and compare with your Reichold product and do not forget that epoxy has no smell of styreen and no water absorbtion at all.

Greetings

Gideon

[BigCat]

Thanks, Gideon

I used an online converter at Conversion Calculators - Convert MPa to psi- Chapel Steel
to convert MPA to PSI. I find that Gregor Tarjan, in "Catamarans-Every Sailor's Guide," is
right when he indicates that if epoxy resin has a strength of 10, then vinylester is a 9.5. Indeed, they are equivalent for strength and elasticity, if you compare your epoxy with Reichhold Dion 9300. I have attached the specs for the vinylester resin here-I think, the posting form gives me no indication that I have succeeded. At any rate, the document is online at

http://www.reichholdchemical.com/doc...0FR%209300.pdf

When you consider the considerable price advantage of vinylester, and the fact that you can make it fire-resistant for an additional 25% increase in resin price, I think that it is clear that vinylester resins are a very attractive alternative to epoxy resins these days. I realize that not everybody feels the same about this, but I actually rather like the styrene smell-no doubt because of its associations with being onboard.

Vinylester resin is also very resistant to water penetration, and some manufacturers who use polyester because it is cheaper than vinylester use vinylester in in the outermost layer of laminate because of this property. An additional virtue of vinylester resin is that many people find epoxy to be a virulent allergen, which is a report I have never heard in regard to vinylester.

-Tim Dunn aka BigCat

[fastcat435]

Originally Posted by BigCat

Thanks, Gideon

I used an online converter at Conversion Calculators - Convert MPa to psi- Chapel Steel
to convert MPA to PSI. I find that Gregor Tarjan, in "Catamarans-Every Sailor's Guide," is
right when he indicates that if epoxy resin has a strength of 10, then vinylester is a 9.5. Indeed, they are equivalent for strength and elasticity, if you compare your epoxy with Reichhold Dion 9300. I have attached the specs for the vinylester resin here-I think, the posting form gives me no indication that I have succeeded. At any rate, the document is online at

http://www.reichholdchemical.com/doc...0FR%209300.pdf

When you consider the considerable price advantage of vinylester, and the fact that you can make it fire-resistant for an additional 25% increase in resin price, I think that it is clear that vinylester resins are a very attractive alternative to epoxy resins these days. I realize that not everybody feels the same about this, but I actually rather like the styrene smell-no doubt because of its associations with being onboard.

Vinylester resin is also very resistant to water penetration, and some manufacturers who use polyester because it is cheaper than vinylester use vinylester in in the outermost layer of laminate because of this property. An additional virtue of vinylester resin is that many people find epoxy to be a virulent allergen, which is a report I have never heard in regard to vinylester.

-Tim Dunn aka BigCat

Maybe not important to you but it is to me
Styrene can make you impotent if I consider that risk with epoxy allerge I know what I would prefer , we do all have our own preferences.
The vinylester is a good product but how come not one racer or any aircraft uses vinylester but all are build of epoxy ?
Puzzling question to me

Greetings

Gideon

Occup Environ Med -- Sign In Page

[BigCat]

"...how come not one racer or any aircraft uses vinylester but all are build of epoxy ? Puzzling question to me"

Hi, Gideon - Aren't you the one that should answer that question? Maybe vinylesters have improved over time, and those who think epoxy is much better are just not keeping up with developments? - Tim

[fastcat435]

Originally Posted by BigCat

"...how come not one racer or any aircraft uses vinylester but all are build of epoxy ? Puzzling question to me"

Hi, Gideon - Aren't you the one that should answer that question? Maybe vinylesters have improved over time, and those who think epoxy is much better are just not keeping up with developments? - Tim

Hallo Tim please tell all the builders of the America,s cup boat , the volvo Ocean Boats and both Boeing ( close to your location) and Airbus
that Vinylester is a better resin because as you have stated Epoxy is minimal 6 % stronger in all fields and has no shrinkage.
You are right to use Vinylester because that is your choice other people build great boats in wood, Iron, Aluminum and even still in ferro cement or woodcore and there is much to say for all these materials and methods.
You use your Vinylester and I will use Dow Chemical,s Epoxy , that makes us both happy.

Greetings
Gideon

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by fastcat435

Hallo Tim please tell all the builders of the America,s cup boat , the volvo Ocean Boats and both Boeing ( close to your location) and Airbus
that Vinylester is a better resin because as you have stated Epoxy is minimal 6 % stronger in all fields and has no shrinkage.
Greetings
Gideon

You forgot to mention all the Formula 1 teams that are stuck in the past using outdated epoxy technologies too.

[fastcat435]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

You forgot to mention all the Formula 1 teams that are stuck in the past using outdated epoxy technologies too.

Yes you are right big mistake and off course in the space station they use the outdated epoxy because of its poor quality,s , we should definately switch to Vinylester since it must be the better choice, recently a racing trimaran broke in 6 pieces while trying to achieve a record so it must be build in the out dated epoxy, funny that the high quality boat builders in Europe are slowly switching over to epoxy like Swan, Grand Soleil, Hanse,Dehler, Standfast,and about 50 more, The must all have been reading history books on the quality of epoxy.
The Faster cruising cats around are all build in epoxy like the Gunboat < Atlantic, and African Cats.

[BigCat]

Well, if you can't prove it with math, I suppose sarcasm is all that is left. The Chinese are sarcastic about the Dalai Lama, claiming he is a nefarious evil doer, and that Tibetan Buddhist monks are planning suicide bombings, too. Un-huh. No doubt Elvis is designing the bombs, and the monks will be delivered by aliens in flying saucers..................Prince Phillip did in Princess Di, too, though the details are still a bit unclear........ I probably shouldn't have told you this, they'll be after you now. Sorry!

[BigCat]

Here: http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...t-12771-7.html

you said, "The price for high quality infusion epoxy resin is around Euro 12 per kg or 8 Usd per lbs while
fire resistand epoxy as used in the aeronautical production cost 3 to 4 times as much.z" I had just written that my quote for Dion 9300-10 fire resistant vinylester resin with antimony trioxide (fire resistant resin) was $2.50 USD per pound six months before.

If you look on the VectorPly website at vectorply.com, you will find that they expect their reinforcements (they don't make or sell resin,) to be infused to 65% unidirectional or multi-axial reinforcements to 35% resin in carbon fiber, and to 70% composites / 30% resin in e-glass multi-axial or unidirectional reinforcement. Since Kelsall is having no problem infusing polyester resin, I think that your issue with 'boiling' resin is another myth or perhaps it is simply out-of-date.

You'll have to do better than this if you want to convince me that epoxy is all that superior to vinylester resin. I'm not saying you can't, but so far, you haven't.

And as far as thread relevance, the thread is "If I compromise will I ever know?" We are discussing whether or not vinylester is a compromise compared to the more expensive epoxy, which is usually said to cost twice as much--

[BigCat]

Ps. Forgot to mention that VectorPly assumes its customers will use vinylester resin, even with carbon fiber.

[Blue Skye]

BigCat, your knowledge is impressive and I find 90% of it enlightening. If you were to ask all of the current builders if money were not the factor do you believe most would use vinylester or epoxy?

Sometimes I read your posts and feel like you choose based on a good (or heated) debate, similar to my grandfather the attorney. By the way, he is one of my favorite people to shoot the s*#t with but once he makes up his mind about something he is hard to (if not impossible) to change his mind.

Keep up the informative posts, and the debate goes on........

[BigCat]

"BigCat, your knowledge is impressive and I find 90% of it enlightening."

Hey, that's how I feel about Gideon (Fastcat.) Based on all I can see, he knows a huge amount and makes a terrific boat, but I think a lot of what he says is BS, too. He says epoxy, which he uses, is waaaaay better than vinylester, but apparently, he can't prove it. The project on my website is being submitted to the USCG for their approval. I have to prove everything I claim in the way of engineering to them. Gregor Tarjan says that vinylester is about 95% as good as epoxy, and that's my best guess, too.

This isn't theoretical to me-this is my boat I am talking about, and I have sailed a yacht through a hurricane--beating to windward off of a lee shore. This kind of experience makes a guy pretty serious about design and construction issues.

Gideon said that fire resistant resin was too expensive, and I pointed out that my fire resistant vinylester resin cost about 70% less than his non-fire resistant resin-using his figure. I am guessing that fire is as big a risk as sinking or capsizing, which gets a lot more 'air time' on yachting BBSs.

If cost were no object is not a way I can afford to approach the question-it takes much deeper pockets than mine to think that way. Even Gideon cares about resin costs, and his yachts are pretty darned gold plated.

[fastcat435]

Hallo Big Cat I do not care about the cost of resin as long as it is the best available for its purpose,I have build with polyester , vinylester , the new Turane resin and Epoxy and all the testing we have done proves one thing
epoxy makes our cats 20 % stronger and 30 % lighter than any other resin.
We also build power cats where weight is not so much an issue so these are build with Vinylester, the next best thing to epoxy.
If we where to build our FastCats in Vinylester we would still be very competative and for sure cheaper but we would loose 20 % of our speed and payload and have less bridgdeck clearance in other words it would not be a Fastcat anymore and that is not what I want.( or my clients ) obviously we are doing something right since we are still sold out for 2 years even with the new models still to come out.
Yes FastCats are not cheap and that is not possible because of the way we build and the materials we use. Epoxy resin infusion , spray painting in awl grip using Carbon , Kevlar basalt etc it all adds up, my customers think the FastCat is value for money,
It is easy for them to say since they have all sailed and only then one can judge a product.
I wish you well , Happy sailing
Gideon

p.s. we have build 57 cats in Vinylester and still made this change
Maybe that accounts for something and maybe boeing is not all wrong in not using vinylester.

[BigCat]

"epoxy makes our cats 20 % stronger and 30 % lighter than any other resin. We also build power cats where weight is not so much an issue so these are build with Vinylester, the next best thing to epoxy. If we where to build our FastCats in Vinylester we would still be very competative and for sure cheaper but we would loose 20 % of our speed"

Gideon, if I wanted to say that you are wrong to use epoxy, I wouldn't beat around the bush-I would just say so. I am saying that some things you say just don't add up--and you have just written more things that don't add up. I am not much for jumping to conclusions, but I am relentless at pursuing conflicting information until the contradictions are resolved. If I didn't respect you, I wouldn't bother to reconcile the things you say, I would just dismiss you as unreliable.

If your cats are 30% lighter because you use epoxy instead of vinylester resin, would you lose 30% of your payload if you used vinylester? Why would you lose only 20% if that were the case?

You say that you can't infuse vinylester at high vacuums-are you saying that your power cats aren't infused at high vacuums? How much vacuum are you using on your power cats? What vinylester are you using? What are its properties?

What makes you sure that your vinylester is the best available for infusion, and what makes you sure that the limitations you believe exist in resin infusing vinylester haven't been overcome by others? You say that high-vacuum resin infusion with vinylester and polyester is impossible, but others say they do it all the time. Are they liars?

My sense is that either you didn't try it, or alternatively, maybe you tried and failed, and assumed that it was impossible, instead of trying to find out what you did wrong-