I think Kern couldn't take Jax and his ilk. He left long ago.

The actual base resin is only made by a couple of companies. West,
Mass, FGIC, Raka, System One and others are "formulators". They get the
base resin and mix it with other chemicals to adjust the viscosity, cure
rate, ultimate strength and resistance to heat to produce what they feel
is the best combination of price and performance that their customers
need.

Everything is a trade off. Lowering the viscosity for easy wettout
while maintaining strength and HDT adds to the cost so those tend to be
the most expensive. At the other end adding thinners, pigments and
fillers to produce epoxy floor paint is the cheapest. The goal is to
balance the cost, workability and performance for a particular market.

The trick is to experiment with several formulations and for a
particular job choose the one that will do best for the least amount of
money.


Ron Thornton wrote:

This brings up a question I have had for a long time. Maybe the Polymer
Chemist that posts here occasionally (sorry, forgot the name) could
explain.

Why is there such a difference in viscosity between various brands of
epoxy. I don't mean the penetrating stuff, just the regular resins we
use for gluing and laminating. If epoxy is almost 100% solids, what is
different in the formulations that give such a difference or is it a
difference in how the base resins are made that the formulator uses for
their individual products.

Regards, Ron


--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com