Working with Fibreglast 1099 Epoxy Surface Coat or Tooling Resin

I had my first application use with FibreGlast 1099 tooling resin and thought I might post how I eventually ended up working with the stuff. I got up early Saturday morning and got everything laid out that I would need to make sure I was ready to apply the tooling resin. I popped open the resin can and was quite surprised that it was the thickness of taffy. I mean this stuff was even hard to dish out from the can. From what I'd read it seemed that people mixed this up using cups so that is what I tried first. So I dished some out into a cup an thought to myself how in the world will I ever stir in the hardener? Well it was suggested to me from Mike James that warm water could be used to soften up the resin a bit. So I boiled some water over the stove until I had a fast boil. Turned off the heat and submerged the cup in the water just enough to make sure no water would run in. It took some time and the resin did soften up a bit, but not nearly enough in my opinion to be able to mix in the hardener. It was not about 10am in the morning and I had already spent about 1 to 1 1/2 messing around with this stuff to get it to a point where I thought I could mix it with the hardener.

(CAUTION: The following information is only posted so that no one else tries doing this.) With the microwave above my stove I figure hey why not put the resin inside and use a low power setting and about 20 seconds to see if the resin would soften. I pondered the idea for a bit and thought hey it is only resin. So yes, I put the cup of resin inside the microwave for 20 seconds on 20% power. Presto! The resin started to look a lot more promising and so I continued with the microwave until it was about as thick as pancake mix. The only problem is the cup was a bit warm and so was the resin. I let the resin sit just a bit before I proceeded out to my garage. I then measured out the appropriate amount of hardener to add to the resin and stirred the resin with the hardener. While stirring I started seeing some vapor rising up from the cup. I was a bit puzzled at first but not too surprised as I did noticed vapor before coming from the hardener can while measuring it out. So I continued to stir. Well the more I stirred the more vapor started forming. I immediately walked outside my garage and set the cup down on my driveway. Standing back as I watched the vapor continued to grow and saw the tooling resin was actually curing due to the heat of the resin which was generated from the microwaving. So I STRONGLY advice against the microwave method of softening the resin. With that said, please don't try this at home! (Take the information above as a "lesson learned"

After the above set back I had to re-think how I was going to mix the resin with the hardener. I mean the resin is like taffy and the thought of stirring the hardener in was going to be a chore. Then I thought why not use a paper plate and mix it with a popsicle stick? Seeing that I did not have much to loose I measured out some more resin and dumped it on a paper plate. I then measured out the hardener into a small cup and started pouring it over the resin. As I started to stir the mix I noticed that the resin was getting soft. So I continued to stir and soon the whole mix was the consistency of toothpaste. I thought wow! Who would have known that the hardener would actually soften up the resin? Things were looking up and I had more confidence that now I would be able to make use of this tooling resin.

After I got the hardener mixed well with the resin I started to add my color pigment and mix it in. While applying this stuff to my plug (I'm making a mold) I noticed after a bit that it was getting thick and hard to brush on. So I read the can again and saw that the pot life was about 20 to 25 minutes. Judging from the time I spent mixing everything up I figured I had only giving myself about 5 minute to brush this stuff on. So I had to mix up second batch to finish covering my plug. During the second batch I watched my time more closely and worked a little quicker. It seems that there is a 10 minute "sweet spot" from the time the hardener is added and the stuff starts to get gummy. So make sure you have everything ready, mix the hardener, add the color pigment and get ready to brush it on fast.

I hope this information will be helpful to someone as I posted this information for the general good of all us working with composites.

JR Gautreaux