Sunday, January 18, 2015

Epoxy or Polyester Resin?


We prefer epoxy because it forms both an adhesive and a mechanical bond to the polyester resin used in the original construction. Our understanding is that polyester repairs primarily result in a mechanical bond and that chemical bonding is weaker than that achieved by epoxy. See West System epoxy for fiberglass boat repair; epoxy vs polyester.  http://www.westsystem.com/ss/assets/Uploads/Ew22Fiberglass.pdf

Gougeon Brothers (West Epoxy) has also done experiments on applying polyester gelcoat over epoxy, with good results, as reported in their paper Polyester over gelcoat.

  -Terry

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