Glen-L.com

Trying to learn more about epoxy and fiberglass.
West Systems is readily available in my area. 105/206 seems to be what I need at least for applying the fiberglass to the hull.

But do I also use it for encapsulation?
What about using it for glue when assembling the frames? Or should I use something else?

I would use Glen l for encapsulation. They are way cheaper and also near you. Plus they host this site for us. I bought 20 gallons for my build and I live in Florida and it was still cheaper even with shipping.

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John Amundsen
Monte Carlo
Winter Haven, FL

Maybe it will be done by G6 and maybe not.

I suppose "near" is a relative term since you are in Florida, however California is still about 1000 miles from me. That puts it out of reach for jumping in my pickup and heading down to buy some.

Nothing against glen-l products, and I am extremely appreciative of both this site and what they offer. I have purchased three sets of plans from them and considering a fourth. I just prefer to shop for materials as locally as I can.

There are a couple of reasons I shop locally. First it helps keep my friends employed. Second, I hate to wait for several days because of mistakes, miscalculations, underestimating, and general clumsiness on my part. Not that I don't care about the price, but I am willing to pay a bit more for the convenience.

I use west system 105/206 for everything and no problems yet, only because it's a bit of a drive for me to pick up from Glen-l

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Malahini, SEAN-NÓS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd6vkPjEy4U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uDVzcVpdhc
crackerbox build http://s753.photobucket.com/albums/xx17 ... =slideshow

I use West Systems 105/206 almost exclusively. Use it straight for encapsulating and attaching glass, and add thickeners to use as glue. They have a microfibre/cotton blend which I use for thickening and I add mahogany wood flour (from extensive sanding) for colour. I got the pumps and typically mix 6 pumps at a time, and add 2 laundry scoops of thickener and 1 of wood flour which so far has given me a nice coloured glue. Time will tell if it is right for the end finish or not. They also have a fairing filler compound, which is very fine and very easy sanding, but slumps on vertical surfaces and apparently doesn't like heat as it softens. Main mistake I made was buying 6L at a time (5L epoxy, 1L hardener), should have got 20 L drum up front. Also note that they have a slow hardener and a fast hardener. I am in a tropical area so use slow exclusively as temperatures rarey go below 20 degrees C.

I would use Glen-L probably, but post to Aussie would be somewhat wicked.

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By the time I have built a boat, I'll be ready to build a boat....

I am probably one of the biggest supporters of everything local, including small business thats run by mom and pop operations. Frankly I pay a few pennies more each and everytime I go to my local hardware store as the first stop when leaving the house.

But I have an entirely different opinion when it comes to buying west system products from local operations. First off the west system marketing program requires each and every purveyor of their product to adhere to their price structure, rarely if ever allowing for any discount. They also make very little for stocking the overpriced product, which is some cases costs more at their wholesale rate than I pay for a gallon of resin by itself on a retail price.


While I for one appeciate what they have done in research and develop on the advantages of using epoxy and showing epoxy's ability, overtime I have become educated to the point that their epoxy does not come close to such an inflated price. There is much more information with many designers across the world that have also built hulls using other products with incredible successes that gives me enough information to keep my additional dollars for good wood and shop with some other deciding factors in mind.

As far as having to reorder product, never ever order just enough. Heck if people have been on this forum for a period of time, you will know that I promote the notion all the time that if you need anything in raw materials always order more than enough and you will find that your next boat can be built cheaper than the present build. Heck if you do this enough and plan properly, your next boat will probably be free to build, when your wife ask you how much it will cost when you are ready to do so.


But anyway, epoxy does not go bad if stored properly and there is plenty of jobs to be done and huge advantages to always having extra if you are in the boat building hobby. Shoot try finishing a section of your boat when you are short of some product for whatever reason and you have wasted the work and any material thats fallen short of doing the job too, leaving you to have to spend much more than what it would have cost you to order extra anyway. Also after you get the initial packing and shipping price in just one or two gallons being shipped in, the process is already done in the ordering process and so you may as well order a bit more if you afford it, IMO.

I've used Glen-L Poxy Grip, West Systems and East Systems epoxy, for both structural bonds and encapsulation. Poxy Grip was mostly for bonds as its pre-thickened.

There is really not much difference that I've noticed between the three of them. If I was to do it over again I would have bought a much bigger tin of Glen-L Poxy-Shield from the start.

West systems is a fair amount more than Glen-L in my area, and East Systems is a lot less expensive (particularly the hardener) but its also a Canadian brand so I am not sure if its even available south of the border.

But pretty much any epoxy can be used for structural or encapsulation, what varies is the amount of thickening (if any) for either operation.

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Ian (aka Iggy)
My Malahini Build

I use RAKA epoxy
I am using the non blushing UV resistand for all aspets of building the Desperado.
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13438

Have fun, Mark