Differences in marine epoxies?

I'm considering purchasing a kayak kit from Noah's - specifically the Laughing Loon North Star kit.

Noah's offers the kit with epoxies from East, West and Mas.

I have a local supplier of West System epoxy and it is what I've been using on my current, non boat, project. It isn't terribly more expensive than the default East epoxy.

Is there any reason to go with the East or Mas options besides price?

 

Nope.

 

I agree. There are all comparable in quality.

 

Look into how much or little the choices blush, if that's an issue.

 

Minor variations in epoxies exist.

Some epoxies have better resistance to blush. Some epoxies are less likely to outgas, although I'm not sure the chemical reasons for this attribute.

I've used West, Raka, Silvertip, and MAS. I prefer Silvertip to all the others. That said, I have minor criticisms of Silvertip. I do not enjoy their color variation and wish they had better controls. I really like the way they have nailed down gel times and prefer all their gel times to all the others I've used. The fast is fast but also always kicking at 20 minutes, the slow is always consistently hitting gelation at 60 minutes, and I've used several hundred gallons. Early on, I had some confusion with them about microvoids in my laminates, but it was my process and high pressures causing it. My second favorite is West. I really like the dispensing from a pump for certain work, but if you are laminating with a gallon of epoxy; that is not the way to go and prone to errors counting pumps. I like MAS, and they are local, but only did a canoe. I remember how perfectly the neat coats went on and no outgassing. I won't mention the other one; too little experience and a problem with outgassing I don't know if from the glass or ply or epoxy.

Also, I only had blush one time which means I will be accident prone to blush bond failure. But Silvertip never blushed for me in a controlled environment. I had blush happen once in my life and forgot which epoxy.