Monday, June 18, 2012

My new touring commando boat

The seats slide on the black runners to adjust the weight to get the right trim.  Power is either 30lb  thrust electric outboard or 3.3hp outboard. It rows easily as well. This is a stable platform and will be used for photography on the local river, The Shoalhaven. It is 12 feet long.There is four fishing rod holders. Fully loaded it draws 300mm. There is room to sleep between the black bars when the seats are removed. Plastic boxes are tied to the black bars to hold all the gear for the trip and these rest in the top yellow hulls. If one was to fall from the boat it is easy to haul yourself back on board as the sides are very low.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

resin over polystyrene part 3

There is another technique to lay up for the resin and that is to lay up using the same methods as for fiberglass.  Use pva wood glue and toilet paper and then allow this to dry paint with catalyzed resin then fiberglass as normal. This is the end of this  experiment. I would like comments on this maybe to enhance the process.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

polystyrene and polyester resin coating part 2

The final results have come in and it can be said that polystyrene can be coated with polyester resin with a barrier of good quality PVA wood glue. If the following steps are taken.

Apply a coating of pva wood glue to the polystyrene and allow it to dry for two days.
Apply a coating of catalysed resin over the pva wood glue as you would apply paint and allow to harden
Apply glass and resin as normal over step two. If a thick coating is applied directly over the PVA glue then it will react with the PVA glue.
I would suggest that a coloured pigment is added to the PVA to allow you to know where you have been same goes for the first coat of resin.
 This photo shows wet resin with no catalyst added to the surface without the styrene dissolving.

Polystyrene and polyester resin coating part1

This shows the glass on the polystyrene The rough area is where the polystyrene was not protected. 
This shows the glass on the polystyrene with the bondcrete glue
The bondcrete glue below again showing the glass ripped off.This is the epoxy spray paint note the parting is both on the polystyrene and the paint
The paint aloud the fumes from the resin to penetrate the polystyrene
This is a section of where the resin was laid thinly and the separation was on the beads in the polystyrene.
This shows where the resin was able to penetrate the glue when applied thickly and at the edges there was only resin thinly coating and there was no penetration of the resin fumes.
This is the cheap sample glue
This is the expensive glue sample
From the observations the best way is to use PVA glue and allow to dry for two days and then paint on resin with catalyst thinly. Followed up with thicker layers of glass and resin. Applying the resin thickly allows the resin to react with the pva glue and burn threw to the polystyrene. I think the cheap and the expensive glues performed about the same with a lean towards the expensive glue.
More experiments will be needed to confirm what I have done.