One more time with reglassing our deck.

[Snowpetrel]

Hi Matt, yeah had a great trip down south. Heres a short vid one of the guys made of our trip. https://vimeo.com/208792357

I guess I really like the botecote. Not the best for Fibreglassing, but the tdra stuff helps a lot and seems way different to use than a normal thinner, so I am inclined to believe the botecote guys on this. And its so forgiving to use with the 2:1 mix ratio, never had a batch fail to kick on me yet, unlike the fussy 5:1 mixes.

Saying that if I had a big job like you I'd probably go for some cheap laminating resin in bulk like the R180 unless you get a good deal on the Botecote.

Peel ply is probably too fiddy for use on the whole deck, unless you have a few people to help lay it out, but it would be a real bonus to chuck down a strip on the edges if you stop for the day, so next morning you just rip it off and the new glass and epoxy can go straight over the join without having to wash and sand. It's also handy on things like cabin sides and small areas as it reduces sanding, and gives a smoother finish. You could do all the tricky edge bits first, peel ply them and leave the peel ply on until you are ready for the big job.

Ive just finished striping and reglassing the decks on a small trailersailer (nis23). The ply was never glassed and was just starting to rot in a few places. I put in a bunch of graving peices by routing out 4mm deep (of the 9mm ply) into any slightly suspect ply and gluing in new 4mm plywood. Then I glassed the whole lot with a light 6oz twill.

[Stumble]

Matt,

There is absolutly nothing wrong with the Bote-Cote epoxy. So far as I am aware it's pretty much a standard amine epoxy that uses a low allergen resin instead of standard amines.

It's the thinner I have a problem with. They don't publish mechanical data, though they do say it reduces mechanical properties. They don't publish vapor barrier tests for it, but do say it requires additional pure epoxy coats to make it water proof.

So it doesn't make stuff waterproof, and it ruins the mechanical properties of the epoxy. So what good is it?

Depth of penetration has never been shown to increase meaningfully due to the viscosity of the epoxy, and no one has shown that depth of penetration has any positive benefit.

As you mention, when I went back and looked again I couldn't find the MSDS so it appears my previous statement was incorrect. I must have gotten it confused with one of the other solvent based epoxies I was looking at. So to that extend I apologize and retract my statement.

From their literature the thinner is just an ultra-low viscosity mono epoxy. Mono epoxies are nice since they extremely low viscosity (which sounds familure), the problem is that they generally do not cure at room temperatures and require elevated temperatures to ever kick.

This is of course conjecture since they don't provide mechanical data (that I found), but it seems likely that like with other mono epoxies this stuff will just sit uncured in the wood forever. Reducing the glass bond strength since epoxy bonds poorly to liquids.


So it's still likely junk, just in a different way.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Snowpetrel

Hi Matt, yeah had a great trip down south. Heres a short vid one of the guys made of our trip. https://vimeo.com/208792357

SP, tried to PM you, but your inbox is full. Would you please PM me your email address?

Matt

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Stumble

...From their literature the thinner is just an ultra-low viscosity mono epoxy. Mono epoxies are nice since they extremely low viscosity (which sounds familure), the problem is that they generally do not cure at room temperatures and require elevated temperatures to ever kick.

This is of course conjecture since they don't provide mechanical data (that I found), but it seems likely that like with other mono epoxies this stuff will just sit uncured in the wood forever. Reducing the glass bond strength since epoxy bonds poorly to liquids.


So it's still likely junk, just in a different way.

Well, people who have used it love it. Strangely, they let real world experience of the product inform them. In other words, they try something new.

Don't worry, I expect you will never have to use it. :^)

Matt