UV light cured resin

I am considering using a UV light cured resin and wondered if anyone here has any experience with them. I am looking for the pro's and con's.

 

Mainly uv cured additive to silmar resin for surfboards makes it dry quicker so they can flip the board over and keep working, Using uv additive makes the dry time 30 seconds to a minute full cure.


https://fiberglasssupplydepot.com/Ultra-Violet-Hardener.html

 

Pro's

very quick cure, lots of working time if not exposed to much UV light, simple (sort of).

Cons

Can be pricy, You need to keep the resin away from UV light when it's being stored, A UV cure light system is very expensive (the booth and lights), cheap if you rely on the sun, but it's not always sunny, the cure is line of sight to the light source, so any surfaces not at 90* to the light either cures slowly or not at all.


At times we supply UV cured resin to a few companies, but it's not a popular production method because of the cost, plus getting an even cure on anything but a near flat panel can be difficult.

 

Dang, didn't notice this was another 10 year old thread before I posted. Somebody likes to pull up very old stuff.

 

I think they got something for sale...................................

 

Black lights are cheap enough, the long Fluro tubes... I used one once for a special glue made by locktite for gluing a pane of glass to stainless plate. Great stuff...

Black lights should work fine for this also...

 

I am glad someone did. I am very interested in the topic, and thats what really counts

 

Most companies add the UV initiator to the entire drum (or we can) and then use it as needed. The UV initiator is much more expensive than typical MEKP, but the real cost is in the light booth and bulbs, it can cost more than one hundred thousand for a good set up. The bulbs need to be the correct wave length, plus they need to emit the correct amount of energy, which decreases over time.

Many customers are very serious about going to UV cure until they look into the actual cost in production, enthusiasm fades after that.

For small jobs and testing the sun works well, but depending on where a shop is located it may not be reliable.