New guy, rookie question.

That sounds like you spend more time cleaning the troughs than working with epoxy. Pumps are successfully used in thousands of shops. They require a bit of care and priming if they haven't been used for a while. I use a stick with sharpie marks in it. Changing the size of the containers and with a couple of different spacings you can figure out a large variety of volumes. However, I sometimes mix a couple of gallons at a time for bigger jobs.

 

West products are fine, but they are really expensive. I've been having really good results with Raka epoxy, much less expensive and seems to be great stuff. You can get pumps from them too.

 

Works for me in any case.

 

Epoxy

I used basic no blush from epoxy USA it's 93.00 for 1and1/2 gallon kit which is $62.00 a gallon. It's a simple 2 to 1 mix. I just used quart mixing cups from Walmart and mixed in batches of usually 8 oz. resin to 4 oz. hardener or 16 and 8. I mixed it with a drill and paddle. I found it's much better to use a new cup each time than to try to clean them. Pour the resin into a paint tray right after mixing, use a disposable paint tray liner, it will set up real quick if you leave it in the cup. This was my first time using epoxy and it worked out real well thanks to the advice I got on this forum. I wouldn't recommend buying epoxy locally unless you know for sure if it hasn't been sitting around on the shelf for a long time.

www.epoxyUSA.com

Dave T

 

I know of a West Marine outlet that has had the same containers of West System on the shelf for many years.

I would talk to a distributer who DOESN'T stock it and ask them to order it in direct.

 

Ditto on the "ditto".

 

I had a 1/2 gallon leftover for 10 years.
Worked perfectly after I cleaned the pumps that had been in the cans the whole time.

This ain't a head of broccoli.

 

I'm thinking either marine epoxy from duckworks.com or Raka. I'm still not sure if I can just get the 3 qt kit or the 1.5 gal kit of hardener/resin. Duckworks has a kit for my boat, http://www.duckworksbbs.com/supplies/kits/jm/piragua/index.htm

Anyone have any luck with marine epoxy? It seems like it'd be about the same price to piece this kit together from Raka.com

 

Usually the kit will save you money IF you are going to buy everything it anyway. I rarely buy kits anymore since I always get stuff in them I do not need.

 

I'm going to comment on the pumps one more time then shut up.
The first two boats I built using epoxy the pumps did their job with no problems. On this last boat the pumps were off by quite a bit. There was too much hardener and the epoxy never got rock hard, some work may need to be redone because it took a while to figure out the problem.
If you use the pumps verify that they are giving you the proper ratio of resin to hardener.

 

Thanks. I'm planning on using the pumps. The 2:1 mixture for Raka and the marine epoxy should be easy enough without the pumps.