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Showing content with the highest reputation on 05/17/2018 in all areas

  1. If really interested in using pigmented epoxy, this is what I've learned. I use this technique inside lockers and buoyancy tanks, where getting paint once the decks or seat tops go on, is very difficult or nearly impossible to do neatly. Epoxy formulators all suggest about 5% pigment by weight. This is because the epoxy starts to dramatically lose physical properties, once much over this amount. Given pigmented epoxy is used to avoid paint in difficult to paint areas or places that will never see paint again, you can safely go to 10%, with a slight decrease in tension modulus, compression, etc. Once over, this properties drop quickly, for example at 20% you've lost over 50% of the epoxies elongation, peel strength, etc. I've used 15% with good results inside of buoyancy chambers and lockers, where painting is just too difficult once the boat is sealed up. I have an anchor locker that wouldn't be too bad to paint if necessary, because the hatch is fairly big, but it's 15% pigmented epoxy coating is doing just fine and only took two coats to get full, solid coverage, much like if it was painted. Now, if you suggest these numbers to the epoxy formulators they'll balk, spouting off numbers and figures about stuff, you might not fully understand. This said, if you keep the mix below 20% (by weight), you'll be fine if, all you want is a tough colored coating, rather than paint. The anchor locker I mentioned gets beat up a lot, as you'd imagine, but other than some fluke scratches, it's still doing fine after a decade.
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  2. This is what 3 or 4 applications of pigmented epoxy can look like. But I did cheat, threw in some microspheres to bump the opacity in a couple layers. Not so much to affect the compression numbers but enough to reduce transparency. Convenience of white.
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