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posted to rec.boats.building
Jim Conlin
 
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Default UV Barrier For Epoxy: Tapes?

Stop worrying. UV exposure won't cause epoxy to fail structurally any time
soon. It just turns to an opaque lemon-curd yellow. I'm sure that ANY tape
offers more UV protection than the varnish finish on strip canoes.

Electrical tape sounds fine if you can get it wide enough. If not, Perhaps
a local sign shop can supply strips of the stiuff they do vinyl lettering
with. Zippy colors, too!


"(PeteCresswell)" wrote in message
...
I've got a 1" seam covered with fiberglass tape/epoxy. Spec surf ski.

I'd prefer to avoid painting it so that I can inspect it for cracking

easily.

Somebody suggested aluminized reflective tape as being the best UV

barrier, but
that seems a little too unaesthetic to me.

I just tried plastic electrical tape and am having reservations. I can

see
light/dark areas through it... so I'm guessing UV will pass as easily or

more
easily than visible light.

I thought of colored duct tape briefly, but it seems like the adhesive

residue
would partially defeat the ease-of-inspection.

OTOH, this doesn't have to be forever. The boat in question is

definitely on
it's last legs - major separations of the hull/deck bond.... mainly I just

want
to nurse it along until I have the bucks to buy a new one.

Anybody have some observations about the tape route?

Am I obsessing over nothing? Can somebody ballpark the failure time/mode

of the
epoxy resin in terms of hours of UV exposure? My mylar windsurfing

sails
start to get failure-prone after about 300 hours of UV exposure in the
mid-Atlantic - and there's no way this thing is going to get 300 hours

before
being junked.

If tape isn't going to work out, will any old black enamel paint do the

trick?
--
PeteCresswell