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Epoxy: The last word on CPES
By:Pete Rudie
Date: 2/4/2002, 6:28 pm

Well gang, I have had a running email discussion with Steve Smith (founder, owner and chemist for Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer) and finally we have some kayak questions answered. These are disjointed snippets from a much longer message, but I believe they contain the information we need to make an informed decision about using CPES as a sealer coat under glass. Steve asked me to publish our discussion to this BBS. Rather than edit the epistle for clarity, I will post the items verbatim.

In 25 words or less:

CPES does not blush.
Rinsing with water before glassing is bad.
No bondbreakers form during cure of CPES.
CPES is suitable for sealing under glass.

Following is full text of the snippets:

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Pete: (Referring to our layup resin, i.e West, MAS, Raka, S3 etc.) If blush occurs we scrub it off with Scotchbrite pads and water.
Steve: I would just dry-sand with Scotchbrite. No point in driving the non-curing amine compounds back into the wood.....

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Pete: It was by accident that the immersion question arose at all. Traditional native paddles are either left unfinished or rubbed down with linseed, tung oil, varnish, or some combination of those and turpentine. These finishes require maintenance. I experimented with some CPES (left over from a log house restoration job) as a substitute for the low-tech materials. It seemed perfect: high penetration, flexibility, rot prevention and almost no weight. So I treated a paddle with the CPES. Several days later I used it, the slime developed, I hosed it off, and everything was just fine.
Steve: We both know now that was immersing the CPES-treated wood too soon in water.

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Steve: Incidentally, what was the day-to-night temperature range when you did that, and was it the Original, Fast Formula, or Cold weather version?
Pete: This all happened last October, so daytime temperatures were in the 50's and overnight just above freezing. My shop is an unheated detached building, so interior temps were about the same as outside ambient. Cold Weather formula was used.
Steve: Okay. Well, that data is what it is. The level of residual solvents plus the not-really-fully-cured resin components gave increased water absorption and generated the slime you got. This is not a normal condition, nor a normal method of product use. Without water absorption so soon, the resin system would have cured normally, the molecules of solvent would have eventually gone away, you would have gotten a long-term chemical bond, and it all would have worked fine. It still can. Just don't immerse the CPES-treated surfaces directly in water so soon.

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Steve: There should not be any emulsified oil coming into existence if the product is properly used. Maybe this is the point I am missing with you, Pete.
Pete: Didn't you say that the solvents in the CPES can emulsify natural oils in the wood, and raise them to the surface? Where and how do they go?
Steve: You have misduplicated something and have misunderstood words and/or omitted or incomplete definitions. Emulsify means to make a suspension of two liquids , neither soluble in the other, as a dispersion of little droplets of one, in the other. Dissolve refers to a condition where the molecules of things intermingle freely, one with the other. Things that dissolve are not emulsions. Water and alcohol, water and salt, these things dissolve in each other. Water and oil do not, and if you get some water in the engine crankcase it will form a "milk-shake", an oil-in-water emulsion. Water in gasoline, if shaken, forms a cloudy emulsion, and on standing will separate. Not all emulsions are stable. Things dissolved one in the other are stable. The big woody molecules that might dissolve in uncured WEST epoxy and precipitate out of the cured system to form an oily film are an example of something dissolved, trying to form an emulsion and failing as the polymer system cures. The solvents in my CPES DISSOLVE the water of wood, my resin system, and the big woody molecules. There is very little water present, compared to the solvents and resins and other stuff. After the solvents evaporate, carrying off some of the water in wood, leaving the rest to be held by the cellulose of wood in the natural manner, and the big woody molecules that were in the wood remain, DISSOLVED in the cured CPES- resin system. There is no emulsion here. Do you get this?

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Pete: Not every builder has ideal working conditions. Many work in unheated spaces. My current house has no shop space big enough for a boat, so that project is happening in the carport. In any case, I would be averse to uncorking those solvents in any shop connected to a living space. Outside with unlimited ventiliation I believe to be the safest working environment.
Steve: That is fine. Just do things as you have, and don't let the boat get rain or condensation on it before CPES, or after CPES, or until fiberglassed and THAT resin system well-cured.

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Pete: Both the inside and outside of the boat get glassed, sometimes with multiple layers of glass and always with multiple coats of epoxy. There is no way for any trapped solvents or oils to escape.
Steve: No, not exactly. Solvents WILL diffuse out. The oil molecules are too big and stay inside.
Pete: Aha! As I suspected, the emulsified oils from the wood remain. And yet you maintain that they are not a bond breaker? How can that be?
Steve: I hope I answered this earlier. You had thought that an emulsion and a solution were the same thing. Emulsions are mixtures of things not dissolved in each other. Solutions are things dissolved together. Angstroms [there are ten billion angstroms in a meter] are one of the smaller units of measurement physicists use. Molecules are a few angstroms or tens of angstroms in size, at least these ones we have been talking about are. Emulsion particles are on the order of twenty thousand angstroms or more in size. The wavelength of light is about five thousand angstroms, and since things dissolved are much smaller than that, the medium seems uniform at light wavelengths which is why solutions look clear. They do not scatter light. The big emulsion or pigment particles are bigger than light wavelengths, which is why they scatter light and so appear cloudy or opaque.

My head hurts. I go now, eh?

Messages In This Thread

Epoxy: The last word on CPES
Pete Rudie -- 2/4/2002, 6:28 pm
I think you meant precipitates, not emulsions
Paul G. Jacobson -- 2/4/2002, 8:00 pm
Splitting hairs
Pete Rudie -- 2/5/2002, 12:07 pm
Re: Splitting hairs
Joe -- 2/5/2002, 1:54 pm