Anyone have any first-hand experience using West Systems products as a substitute for gelcoat?
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Re: West Systems Epoxy Resin
I use West System Epoxy quite a bit. Most of my experince is in the maintence of fibergalss boats, but I also use for repair of my vettes. IMHO the west system products are very good. Using epoxy rather that polyseter resins is a major imporvement in that the cure seems to never have the problems I occassionaly got with polyester. With polyester I had difficulties usually related to waxed or unwaxed cures or cure temperature sensistivity.
As far as using pure epoxy resin as a subsitute for gel coat, it is probably not the best plan as the resin will cure very hard and leveling/smoothing the surface could take quite a bit of work. However, using a filler in the resin such as glass beads will result in a "filler" like material that will sand and smooth very nicely for small areas. You may also need to add thickeners to this mix to make the "filler" the right viscosity. I don't think trying to do a whole car with a "filler" like mix of epoxy would be the right solution. -
Re: West Systems Epoxy Resin
I used WEST system epoxy years ago in the marine industry. Is was speciffically designed for WOOD applications. It actually seeps in to the fibers and provides a much stronger bond that polyester resigens ... which just adhear to the top surfaces. The waxing problem is the toughest thing to deal with when using poly resigns. If wax has not been added, the resigns will bond. But not if there was wax added to the first layer.
I believe that there are other gel coat products avail that spray on which will leave a much smoother finish.Comment
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Re: West Systems Epoxy Resin
Would you care to name a few? I think it would be a big help to a lot of people.
TerryComment
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Re: West Systems Epoxy Resin
As some of the other posts mention, I would use PPG DP series epoxy in place of gel coat. Lot easier to work with.Dick WhittingtonComment
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Re: West Systems Epoxy Resin
Here's selected quotes, taken from an article in the Aug 2001 edition of Vette Magazine, page 55 about restoring a rough 53 Corvette project to very high finish standards:
.... It was first plastic-media blasted to remove all paint and primer, but not damage fiberglass or gelcoat. A lot of reglassing was done, up to 50% being reglassed. Then the car was meticulously sanded to a glass smooth texture. Even after this step, parts of the original fiberglass not replaced or repaired still showed its age.
.... the original fiberglass that was not subject to repair looked as though the surface had pits in it, not a good base to use for a concours over-restoration
.... Using a precise mixture of application-specific epoxy primers, four gallons of Awlgrip 545 were laid down in the first step of smoothing out the top and bottom of the car.
Once the epoxy primer had dried sufficiently, an additional three gallons of Awlquick were sprayed on both sides of the body. The combination of these products completely fills in all the pitting and cracking in the old fiberglass and is the basis for initial sanding.
More of this article can be found at the link below:
53 restoration articleComment
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