CPES- (clear penetrating epoxy sealant)- uses, and how to make your own…

Discussion in 'Materials' started by hansp77, Jun 6, 2006.

  1. Roly
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    Roly Senior Member

    That acetone makes epoxy any more rubbery than the others?
    This is not borne out in destruction tests however chemically logical it may be. As far as my experience goes they all destroy the integrity of epoxy.

    But for stabilizing a substrate in terms of rot and improving density thinned epoxy seems to work well.(with a fungicide) Good for end grain sealing. ( The key is unthinned over top)
    Under varnish for new timber it also works great.


    The MEE test and article is a good reference on strength reduction of thinned
    epoxy.
    http://www.seqair.com/skunkworks/Glues/WestSystem/Thinning/Thinning.html

    I have decided only to use thinned epoxy as an agent to migrate fungicide into suspect timber
    that I cant replace, which ain't much!
    And then use regular overtop.
    For gluing or sealing a little heat is the way to go.
     
  2. hansp77
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    hansp77

    mcollins07, For ethylene glycol,
    do you mean antifreeze straight out of the bottle, or would you have to purchase or isolate the active ingredient seperatly?

    Plus, is ethylene glycol toxic to us big flesh bags as well as to fungus?

    Would treating wood with this effect the epoxy penetration and or bond?
    Maybe this is part of the "problems" which have caused (international)evidure to remove fungicides from their product.

    I would think if toluene is a little more expensive that xylene, it might still be the one to go for. I mean the savings made from manufacturing your own CPES would easily allow for the use of the best ingredients.

    Maybe a strategy could be to apply different coats of different mixes, with the aim of finishing with as much epoxy penetrated as deeply as possible with as little solvent trapped inside, and a strong well bonded epoxy layer on the outside.
    What this would be, we would have to figure out,
    acetone heavy mix first, a sand, then a acetone light mix, then a pure epoxy mix?

    Dunno.

    Something raised by someone-somewhere (if that isn't confusing enough), is a concern that I have had. When CPES drys, does the evaporating solvent leave fissures? Is this why we can put coat on after coat, and still get penetration?
    Also, with a degraded epoxy bond, like acetone may produce, is this necessarily a bad thing WITHIN wood, where structural strength is less of an issue rather than penetration and water sealing? Especially if this is overcoated with a stronger epoxy layer...

    with a few tests we might just get there in the end.
    Even if we come up with a relatively inferior product, we could afford to use SO MUCH MORE. Litterally soaking everything in it, still saving money, and making up for the slightly inferior epoxy bond.

    Now I am just rambling...

    [EDIT] I took so long, you snuck in Roly,
    What you said, that's sort of what I was thinking, You just said it quikcer and better.
     
  3. hansp77
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    hansp77

    Just reading through that link you provided Roly,
    I realised I have read it before,
    when I was first preparing to use my big bottles of West epoxy I had bought.

    As they fairly debunk a few of the goals of deeper penetration, 1) restoring rotted wood to new, and 2)providing a better bond,
    I am not so sure about their 3rd one,

    "3) Water resistance of a piece of wood is not enhanced by deep penetration. Wrapping wood in plastic makes a pretty good waterproof seal without any penetration at all. Likewise, an epoxy coating on the surface is more water-resistant than a thinned epoxy coating that has penetrated deeply into the wood because, in most instances, the epoxy thinned with solvent is porous."

    Fair enough, a layer of glad wrap will seal my deck, and if it could be bonded properly to the wood and then painted over it might work. Until of course I scrape it enough to reach raw wood.
    This is where i see the benefit of deep penetration. Even though "epoxy thinned with solvent is porous" if we treat our wood, and treat it again and again untill it will take no more, it will be a hell of a lot less porous that raw wood. So deeper penetration will mean deeper protection from damage, and more time to notice such and get on top it- ie repair it.
    If we combine this with a true epoxy layer on top, then we get the best of both worlds.
     
  4. Roly
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    Roly Senior Member

    Agreed! As long as most or all of the solvent has been allowed to evaporate before
    the unthinned coat is applied.
    Good call Hans. :)

    I have drilled my keel bolt holes (in keelson) out well oversize and are applying
    epoxy/xylene/toluol/preservative to them. (flooding to saturate)
    We will present the keel, with new bolts to the hull and set them in 100% epoxy. ( Bolts prepped with a film of MS or Sikaflex)
     
  5. mcollins07
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    mcollins07 Senior Member

    Very interesting reference, Roly.

    I agree with you that all of the solvents degrade the integrity of epoxy. And that the real key is to apply over coat of unthinned epoxy. Gougeon Brothers also make a good point that slightly heating the resine is usually better than adding solvents, if this is practical.

    It is suprising to me that the acetone did not degrade the compresibility more than the laquer thinner. I suspect the acetone will degrade the tensile strength faster than xylene, but this would certainly be interesting to test. Also, it would be useful to have viscosity and strength data for the concentrations of the individual compents of the laquer thinner, eg, mek, toluene, xylene, etc.

    In any case, a two part solvent is a good choice to work with. Two part systems give some flexibility, but are not too complicated to interprete the results. One might consider using acetone and methanol since Gougeon Brothers has provided some data. ... I'd still try xylene. If a little xylene significantly reduces the amount of acetone need to achieve the desired viscosity.... this could be a good thing.
     
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  6. hansp77
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    hansp77

    Mcollins,
    regarding the heating of the epoxy, I was never quite game to do this as;
    I thought it might speed up the reaction time, would be difficult and messy, and unless the substrate was heated through as well, would cool to room temp on contact anyway. It just all seemed to unreliable and fiddly.
    Has anyone tried this, and does it actually thin it enough for deep penetration?

    I do like the idea of using methanol, as if it is trapped (and released at later times) it will be far less damaging/corrosive/solving to paints and other things.

    One thing I tried doing was heat gunning some of my wood after applying CPES. This was done in order to spead up drying time, but, it did also seem to get out a lot more of the solvent that may not have come out without heat. i am not sure if this is to be recomended though.
     
  7. mcollins07
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    mcollins07 Senior Member


    antifreeze straight out of the bottle works well to stop fungus rot.

    You would want to dry most of the ethylene glycol out before applying the epoxy. Soak the wood in antifeeze, then dry it with heat or vacuum before applying epoxy. As it would probably reduce the bonding, if left wet. I have used ethylene glycol to stop rot, but I have not tried to epoxy over it.
     
  8. mcollins07
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    mcollins07 Senior Member

    The viscosity of the epoxy resine is very sensitive to temperature. Heat does speed up the reaction time. The temperature is a critical paramter to get consitent results. My notes said 104 F is a max temp. I heated to 90 F. I believe the pot life was at least a couple of hours.
     
  9. Russ
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    Russ 60 year plastics veteran

    Hey guys, I am going to send Steve Smith a note inviting his comments on this thread. Steve is the Owner of "Smith & Company" who make most of the CPES either using his name or private labeling for other companies. He has developed some "tricks" involving the addition of matching wood resins which create a very compatable bond for oily woods like TEAK.
    I was not convinced at first but time showed me he was "nearly" as smart as he thinks he is, GRIN!~
     
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  10. hansp77
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    hansp77

    Well, thank you Russ,
    As the initiator of this thread,
    I (as I am sure would the other contributers) would eagerly welcome any and all imput that Steve Smith might care to give to this topic.
    Though I am sure he will probably have some damn good (and technical) reasons why I can't make this stuff myself, and can no doubt back up his claims with some slightly more involved and detailed experiments and trials than my planned "hanging treated peices of my swing mooring," I eagerly await to be convinced.
    Hans.
     
  11. Russ
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    Russ 60 year plastics veteran

    hansp77,
    You are absolutely correct, I read a very technical report on the subject and felt like I was being overwhelmed with jargon even though I understood it. Time was the convincer in my case. After using his CPES on a 50'+65 year old restoration I am convinced he is not full of crap. I hope he joins in! Russ
     
  12. Steve Smith
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    Steve Smith New Member

    Hello.

    I'm Steve Smith.

    I was told by Russ Burke that there was some discussion of my Clear
    Penetrating Epoxy Sealer [also known as CPES] on this forum, and some
    False Data about it, and that I should drop in and correct
    misunderstandings and a lack of correct data.

    First, Let me call to your attention that there is a website where
    the underlying technology of this product is posted, along with
    mechanical tests and an open standard for competitive equivalency,
    should any other manufacturer wish to make a competitive product with
    comparable properties. My purpose in throwing down this gauntlet was
    to create more business for everyone including myself, since there is
    so much wood in use in the world, that there is enough business for
    everyone.

    That website is www.woodrestoration.com .

    I invite you to read it in its entirety.

    Now, there are a few things not-as-well-known: One is that glycol
    screws up the properties of epoxies. There was a long post on The
    Wooden Boat Forum about this a few years ago. You can ask any epoxy
    manufacturer if they recommend adding glycol to their products and
    they will all say no, as it increases the water-absorption of the
    cured resin and degrades cured properties.

    Just-in-passing, you CAN safely apply borate salts [*without glycol*]
    dissolved in water, to wood, and after the water has evaporated use
    any epoxy product. Dried borate salts are entirely compatible with
    epoxy compounds, and the residual borate will migrate around very
    slowly in the water-of-hydration of the wood,offering some long-term
    protection. If you do this, use only a Wagner L606
    http://www.wwwagner.com/proline_l606.php [or equal] type of
    moisture meter. It measures water with radio waves and does not read
    salt-conductivity, as do the ones with the probes (which as a
    consequence are much less accurate).

    Second, adding some random-mix of solvents to some random-made epoxy
    product, and applying it to wood, can sometimes result in properties
    that serve the owner, and do not do unusual things long-term. Often,
    they have hidden liabilities. There is an interesting phenomenon,
    wherein water, being more soluble in the amine curing agents of most
    common epoxy glue products, will preferentially dissolve in it. Adding
    some methanol, denatured wood alcohol, acetone or the like, will
    further preferentially dissolve the curing agent and the water, since
    the epoxy resin has VERY little solubility in alcohols. The net result
    is that the epoxy resin/hardener mix will actually DEmix, and separate
    into two phases, one containing largely alcohol, water and curing
    agent, the other largely the resin, when it soaks into the wood and
    encounters as little as a percent or two of water. Since there is
    commonly some water in wood, and more around deteriorated wood, you
    have to figure this is a likely thing to happen. It's a bad thing,
    because the mixed epoxy-hardener separates. The result is that the epoxy,
    containing some amine-contamination, gels inside the wood intermixed
    with droplets of amine-goo, which will never harden and act as
    paint-stripper as well as hydrolyzing the triglyceride oils in the
    wood, making glycerine [a glycol] and biodiesel [another excellent
    paint stripper. You don't want this to happen. There was, again,
    another long post about this a few years back on the Wooden Boat
    Forum. This sort of thing is known, but occasionally becomes forgotten
    and needs to be rediscovered, too often the hard way.

    You can see this for yourself. Mix up some epoxy, perhaps the
    "available-everywhere" five-to-one stuff. Add a few volumes of
    methanol or alcohol-stove ethanol or whatever, to thin it. Now mix
    that all up, and add a very little water, with good mixing. Notice
    when it becomes cloudy, and let it sit and clarify. Not how much
    water you added. The separated stuff....drain off the clear part, and
    paint each on a piece of paper and see if it "cures". It won't.
    what's going on is what I said, in the preceding paragraph.

    That's what happens when you take some "home-brew" mix and soak it
    into wood. Now, what about mechanical properties when there was not
    much water present, and things do cure properly?

    There have been since the beginning of wood restoration with my
    technology the usual American Free-Enterprise ideas that one could
    make this stuff with a bit of this-and-that, "since it was just
    thinned-down ordinary epoxy". I admire that. It's our American
    Spirit. But, in this case, it ain't so. Here's how you can see that
    for yourself: Take some of anyone's brand of epoxy and mix a bunch of
    lacquer thinner with it. Make different mixes, with different
    amounts......whatever you like. Soak it into some cut pieces of a
    common cedar shingle.....Western Red Cedar, just as I used in the tests
    shown in Section 4 of www.woodrestoration.com. Give it a couple
    weeks for all the solvents to go away, and your epoxy to fully cure.

    Then....Bend it. Observe "by feel" how flexible the wood is.

    See how it feels...how much force it takes to bend it a certain
    amount. Compare that with one you did not treat. The untreated one
    will be MUCH stiffer. Now go back and look at the test results at
    www.woodrestoration.com . See how that same wood impregnated with
    CPES has a flexibility about the same as untreated wood?

    The mechanical properties of the resin system of CPES is an almost
    exact match to the mechanical properties of natural wood.

    No other epoxy can make that statement.

    If you are going to restore wood, doesn't it make sense to restore it
    with something that glues the remaining fibers back together with
    mechanical properties close to those of the original resin/lignin glue
    in the original wood? Of course it does. CPES does that. The test
    results at www.woodrestoration.com prove it.

    Nothing else does what CPES does.

    The reason is that CPES is made largely from the natural resins of
    wood itself, and all the other epoxy products out there around this
    planet, made by others, are made from petrochemicals.

    I pioneered this concept, 34 years ago. The foregoing was my line of
    reasoning. No one else does that because it's very difficult to use
    those kinds of resins. They are VERY viscous and hard to handle in a
    production environment. I had to solve a lot of problems to be able to
    use those kinds of resins. I succeeded, and make my product family,
    [CPES, MultiWoodPrime, Fill-It Epoxy Filler, Oak & Teak Epoxy Glue,
    others] from these kinds of resins because they are more flexible than
    petrochemical resins, stick better to wood than petrochemical resins,
    dissolve better the natural oils of wood than petrochemical
    resins, and are capable of being made with much longer working times
    [Pot Life] than petrochemical resins.

    Some common petrochemical products have a pot life of fifteen minutes
    or so. Those things react faster in a solvent solution, as the
    molecules have more mobility and can find each other easier.

    My CPES [Warm Weather formula] has an eight-hour pot life. It has MUCH
    more time to impregnate into the smallest single-fiber voids where
    fungi have eaten along a single wood fiber and left their spores in
    there.

    Anyone can inquire at the factory [Contact information is on the
    website www.smithandcompany.org ] and we will send you literature and
    serve you directly or get you in touch with the nearest supplier.

    It is sold in Australia under the Senseal name, in Europe under the
    Lignu name, in the U. S. under my own Smith & Co. Clear Penetrating
    Epoxy Sealer and MultiWoodPrime names, as well as by some other
    distributors under their labels, but if it says Clear Penetrating
    Epoxy Sealer on the label, it's the genuine stuff because that's my
    trademark name.

    I hope that clarifies the subject.

    Best regards

    Steve Smith
     
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  13. hansp77
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    hansp77

    Thank you very much Steve.
    That is a very good contribution to this discussion.
    Rather convincing too (damn).
    I am still keen to try some tests with some home made stuff. Even if just to prove it to myself.
    I will try your links later.
    Gotta go work on that boat...

    Thanks. Hans.
     
  14. DanishBagger
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    DanishBagger Never Again

    Cool.

    Thank you for coming here and explaining, Steve.

    It is much appreciated :)

    Andre
     

  15. Thin water
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    Thin water Senior Member

    Another consideration may be the use of a slow hardener to allow the evaporation of your solvent before the epoxy hardens, trapping any unevaporated solvent. Any trapped solvent would need to be compatible with the hardened resins or it would weaken it over time. The trapped solvent could weaken the bond with the additional lay up over time. Overall an interesting idea.
     
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