> Judy,
>
> Could be that gell coat resists it but when I was working on my forward
> hatch
> I used some laquer thinner to remove some unwanted two part epoxy (clean
up
> with laquer thinner) and it got on the non gel coated glass, it all went
> mushy, freaked me out. Later, after it had all dried etc. I gave it a
coat
> of polyester resen and it is alright now. It was a small spot, but I'm
quite
>
> paranoid about laquer thinner around polyester resin anymore.
>
> Ralph Aeschliman
> HMS-18 #67 Moby Duck
> Flagstaff, AZ
>
I'm pretty sure gelcoat can withstand lacquer thinner, or else Redwing would
be a gooey mess right now. I'll try an experiment next week. I'll take an
old mixing pot of cured polyester and and another of cured gelcoat out of my
trashcan and pour some lacquer thinner in it. I'll let you know what happems.
By the way, last week there was some talk about using wax paper to help epoxy
resin that wasn't curing cure. Didn't sound quite right to me. Gelcoat
needs to be protected from air to cure, not epoxy.
Anyway, I was laminating some oak strips together with epoxy for and, just
for the heck of it, I did some of the work on wax paper. Yup, the epxoy
stuck to it really well. I had to sand the wax paper off the back of my
wooden laminate. So, don't try to "cure" epxoy by covering it with wax paper.
I also think that if it takes weeks for epoxy or polyester resin to "cure",
then it didn't undergo the polymerizing reaction. In other words, the resin
didn't cure, the solvents just evaporated. I don't think that resin that
takes weeks to cure will have the properties of cured resin. It won't have
the long polymer chains that give cured resin its strength, resistance to
chemicals or moisture resistance.
Just my two cents worth. It's been a long time since I took organic
chemistry, and I forgot that whole section on plastics and resins two hours
after I took the exam.
Regards,
Judy B.