Today, I wanted to talk about the bonding experiences. We are pretty good with the cheap and cheerful 60min and 90min epoxies available from Loctite. In general, they are worthy of their cost. For the most part:
- they get it done
- are easy to clean
- decent finish that is sandable, but micro-balloons help immensely
- and wet chemistry does not rip the skin off of your hands
- they are not super hard
- sometimes leave a sticky surface which needs hand washing a bunch of times to get the surface clean
- cheap means heavy
- in the warm, humid air of Florida sometimes the pot runs really fast.
It is exciting to see it melt through two cups and run epoxy all over your surface and drip down your leg. The steam is cute on a 100% humidity afternoon. Around here, it is not uncommon to see rising off of your sneakers, but it is exciting to see rising off of your freshly-laid skin. It still burns your skin ... boiling water is hot... If the cup gets to be hot to the touch, or the epoxy runs really fast then you only have a few more minutes before the epoxy fixes.
We have some other adhesives and layup chemistries used by the "pros". Ok, yikes. There are enough flames, warning symbols and ventilation requirements that we honesty did not have the facilities to use them. However, some basic tests show that the stuff from Aircraft Spruce is really hard and easy to sand. It stuck to everything , was hard to get off of skin, and 10:4 is not an easy ratio to eyeball. So it needs a scale and a fan to pull air away. I can only say it must be best with vacuum-bagged molds and infusion systems.
I would suggest using either, just know what you are getting into. With any bonding system, rough your bond area with steel wool, clean your area with a clean cloth and alcohol. Cleaning with alcohol is to pick up any grease, dust, grime and hair. Test your bond between scrap pieces of material.
