Erez writes:

: I used shrink wrap when I filled the joints of my take-a-part
: with thickened epoxy. it worked wonderfull !

: that shrink wrap HATES (!!) epoxy.

Sounds like this might be a cost effective alternative to vacuum bagging for one time projects. Lay on the glass and resin, wrap in shrink wrap, and heat it gently to get the shrinkwrap to tighten up.

No need to run a vacuum pump for hours, so you can use the lighter-duty home vacuum cleaners for the few seconds it takes to initially suck out the air.

Suck out the air before you heat the shrink wrap and you could seal the envelope air tight, and disconnect the vacuum cleaner. A gentle application of heat would shrink the cover down tighter, removing wrinkles. The application of heat over the shrinkwrap is probably not going to be long enough in any one area to affect the curing rate of the resin, though it might speed things up by a few seconds.

There seem to be different types of shrinkwrap meterials. I see one type (very lightweight) used on packages of computer software, and another (much heavier) used to winterize sailboats. They shrink it around the whole boat. Obviously one would want to test whether their resin released essily from their shrinkwrap.

Anyone want to experiment with this on a paddle or a hatch cover?

PGJ