Epoxy is really crap for homebuilding

On Tue, 20 May 2008 19:51:36 -0700 (PDT), BobR
wrote:


you know if the stuff didn't smell so bad, or take so long to cure, or
wet out the cloth a little better due to it's higher viscosity, I
might be in the group of those who hail the stuff. But I can't get by
it's negatives. And am amazed at how many homebuilders are willing to
put up with the stuff. And to top it off, it's twice as expensive. The
only part of the vinyl ester resin I don't like is the DMA accelerator
that is added to it when it's promoted. And it's amonia based. But the
promotion is only done when a new batch of resin is promoted, not that
often for me. With epoxies, you get to smell amonia every time you use
the stuff. I'm stuck using epoxy for a while, due to some parts I have
that are made out of epoxy, and it's needed to bond them to the
fuselage. Epoxy will stick to vinyl ester, but not the other way
around. So I've heard. I also bought one of those baggage pods the EZ
guys mount to the wings ( or draggage pods ). And they are all epoxy,
and require quite a few layups out of epoxy. So that's where I'm
really getting into using the stuff. Fortunately, I'm nearly finished,
and can go back to using vinyl ester and it's nice sweet smell. I'm
mounting the EZ pod on the belly of my homebuilt (just one) with the
curvature on the bottom, instead of the top like the EZ's mount them.


You must be hypersensitive to the amonia smell because the only time I
have noticed it to any degree is if I took a deep whiff from the can.
Even then it is not overly strong. Even my wife, who has the overly
sensitive nose in our household doesn't mind the epoxy odor. The red
coloration is simply an oxidation that occurs in the hardner over time
but hasn't caused any problems with the layups I have seen.

Clearly though, you don't like working with epoxy so my simple advice
would be DON"T. The fact that you don't like it though is not a valid
excuse for condemnation of all things composite or for degrading a
great designer who revolutionized homebuilt design and construction.


In the future if you hate to make a uncalled for comment, don't.