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Building Tips and technical articles. => Building techniques => Topic started by: Ralph Wenzel (d) on January 20, 2007, 02:36:38 AM
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This has probably been covered somewhere, but let me offer a tip on laminating with epoxy. My first use of West Systems epoxy was last night, laminating 1/32" plywood skins onto ARF Strega flaps to gain some stiffness. The mixed epoxy is "water white", and the only way to tell if I was getting coverage was low-angle reflectivity. Gee, I missed the old Hobbypoxy Formula 2!
This morning I called West Systems and asked about tinting the epoxy using artist's dry pigments. Their engineer said it was a fine idea, and would not adversely affect bond strength. Then I did the 2nd flap, adding a teensy bit of blue pigment to the mix. Now, not only was it easy to see what was covered, but I could also get an idea how even the coverage was based on the depth of color. Oh; "teensy" in this case was the equivalent of a 1/8" "cube" of pigment mixed into 1 oz. of resin/hardener. A 2 oz. jar of the pigment costs about $20 and contains (at least) several thousand "teensies". <Groan> I may try mixing custom dope colors next.
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Good tip!
There are also epoxy pigments available to color the epoxy any color you want. When I was in the golf club repair business, the colors for pouring inserts in the old wood heads were limitless since you could "mix" them to match.
Bill <><
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Wonder what a powder like Rit dye would do ?? Might get a chance to try that...
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Good tip!
There are also epoxy pigments available to color the epoxy any color you want. When I was in the golf club repair business, the colors for pouring inserts in the old wood heads were limitless since you could "mix" them to match.
Bill <><
I used to do the same thing with Bowling Balls. Those were expensive products!
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"Wonder what a powder like Rit dye would do ??"
My 2nd B Proto was covered with red Japanese tissue, applied with dyed clear epoxy. Same technique as dope, in that you disolve the Rit dye in the appropriate solvent, strain out the crystals, dump the solvent into the epoxy, and go for it. The result is the same, in case you decide you don't need to topcoat it...the dye leaches out of the epoxy, just as it does with dope. It looked great, until the fuel got on it, FWIW. HB~> Steve