MAS Epoxy - Not worth it! (infusion: data on hardener use at various temperatures)

First post, it sounds like.


Ok, Mr Professional, so how much are you paying for drums of Infucure and associated hardener? Obviously, if you are buying 45 gallon drums of epoxy (a shorted 55) for $6000, you are not the owner of your company and could care less if you go out of business.

A real company would use Momentive, as they sell drum quantities and up. Same or better quality 3 part infusion system, half the price. A made up company starts a new account just to respond to this thread.

Congrats on the new BD.net account, Mr MAS employee.

You couldn't answer the technical response I made to your first post, so you make a new account and keep piling on the insults?

Are you guys really this bad at running a company? No wonder half the suppliers I talk to refuse to carry your product. You must be just as bad to them as you are to your end users.

Do you realize you can actually tank your entire company by doing this? Do you understand that just about every boat builder there is reads this forum and sees the incompetent first response you made and couldn't answer technical questions on, then the second feeble attempt to keep piling on insults to your customer by creating a new account just for this post?

Wow.

Who in their right mind would pay $6000 for 45 gallons of resin and associated hardener after seeing how you guys treat your customers, then come online to call them dumb and inexperienced?

Your sales, which are already nose diving, are going to tank completely after this. Nice knowin' ya.

Note: MAS, even after reading this thread, has *still* not provided me with the required temperature specific information.

 

I don't work for Mas though it does sound like you are struggling with getting up to speed on this process in your first build.
It's not surprising as it take some time to get a feel for the materials and their use in your site conditions.

Test panels?
How did they go? How many did you do and why don't you have sufficient information from these runs?

On price- I know what I am paying before I order- slamming the manufacturer on price is off base.
I use Mas as their product is excellent, meets my needs and price is not the most important variable for "real businesses"
Of the variables- quality, cost, ease of use and availability, I rank cost last..

Regards

 

Yeah, right. Sure you're not from Mas or aren't a partial owner. I believe you.

Lots of people join forums and post in only one thread with their first two posts. Money has it we won't hear from this account in a month. You're a troll. A MAS troll.

Though, it sounds like you're struggling with getting up to speed with internet marketing and customer service. It takes some time to get a feel for how to run a company and how to ramp up your customer service so that you don't end up out of business.

One tip is that a barrage of idiocy on the internet, where all boat builders can see, is probably not the best way to go about it.

If you want some help, I'd be happy to offer my consulting services. My rates are $6000 per day.

 

Sounds like a mismatch between product, price, and job.

 

They may have just thought they didn't need to do the homework. If your customers do it for you those research costs can go to other things, bonuses? I haven't worked with MAS epoxy so I'll stay out of the war zone but way back when the Gougeons got my vote because they were boatbuilders who built machinery for tests, published the data, used the products, developed new ones and kept us in the loop. And their boats have spoken for themselves. In truth many epoxies can be suitable for the job but taking the guess work out of the learning curve sure helps, the primary adhesive for your boat is a poor thing to bargain over.

 

We've had good luck with MAS too, but we don't use it for vacuum infusion.

 

I've seen good non infusion results with Chem tech T-88, System 3 and heard good reports about MAS and Raka but not for infusion uses. What does Derek Kelsall recommend for KISS?

 

Again- I don't work for Mas.
Again- how many test panels did you run at your site?
No one is badmouthing you- but you have chosen to attack a respected manufacturer when you can't figure out how to use a product.

 

Looks like Uffer and CatBuilder are talking past each other. There is a difference between "can't figure out how to use a product" and not getting technical data on ratio vs temperature dependency which would simplify using the product in variable temperature conditions.

 

Agreed David, Though I will say that materials and their application require experience, sometimes years of it.
No amount of summary guidelines can substitute.

Catbuilder- good luck with your build.

 

Precisely, David.

I am more than comfortable infusing entire hulls that are close to 50' feet long.

No big deal. Probably larger than our "mystery man" who recently signed up just to troll my thread has ever infused.

It's not the infusion process, which MAS employees like Uffer always make sound difficult. It's the curing time of the epoxy, as you say in your post.

They refuse to provide temperature specific data on cure times, even though every other reputable epoxy manufacturer does.

I think Cavalier has really nailed it.

They charge $6000 for a 45 gallon kit of epoxy (a shorted 55 gallon drum, when ever other company fills the drum) and can't even take the time to put data together on the epoxy at different temperatures?

Pure greed. Enough greed, combined with this public customer service debacle to severely crimp their sales.

FWIW: I am very happy with every other epoxy I've ever used. System Three is probably the best with support. I have not used West System. I think West System set the bar, then System Three followed that, as did most every other manufacturer, except MAS. They are really far behind in that area. They are the most expensive choice, but with no support or research done on their products, which means... as I said in the title of the thread... MAS is not worth it. For large projects, Momentive (an epoxy supplier to these small companies that then jack up the price and resell to the marine market) is a better choice. Why pay a company like MAS to do nothing but put the Momentive epoxy in drums and come on line to trash their customers. There is no value added. Just buy the same epoxy from Momentive for half the price if you are doing projects big enough to justify buying several drums.

Of course, I would not say the same thing about System Three or other companies that actually do share all the technical data with you. With those companies, it is worthwhile to pay extra for that support. But why pay double the price for the same product with no temperature specific instructions?

Cavalier: DK usually recommends polyester or vinylester for his boats.

 

So then why did you select the MAS resin to begin with Catbuilder? With your time budgeted at $6000/day, you should not have ordered resin to begin with without
1.) obtaining the data you needed beforehand
2.) making the sale contingent on it, or
3.) arranging for a shop to test for you at time and materials ahead of time if there was a reason you wanted to use it. It would cost you far less than $6000 a day! Or hire a low man on the totem pole to run tests for you at $15/hour plus materials.

 

FMS: You missed the joke/sarcasm, I guess.

They charge $6000 for a 45 gallon resin kit. I am fairly skilled at running small businesses and providing excellent customer service. Hence, my joke was that my consulting rate is $6000 per day (an outrageous number, the same outrageous number they are charging - a joke to illustrate a point)

1) Every other epoxy vendor in the market provides this data. It was a surprise to receive the infusion epoxy (a 3 part epoxy) without anything other than a packing slip. When every other manufacturer sends you some literature or even a sticker on the side that shows how an epoxy behaves at various temperatures, you come to expect it after ordering several 55 gallon drums of the stuff from various companies. I mean, this information is pretty much the only information you need with epoxy. What else is there? Just mix ratio and working time at various temperatures. It's standard stuff.

2) See #1 - it's just unheard of, as every one of their competitors provides cure times at various temperatures.

3) I have no problem with the quality of the epoxy. It's a fine quality. I didn't need tests run. I know other people in boat building who have used it. There are other boats built from it. It works just fine. The problem is, it's a mystery as to how much accelerator to add at various temperatures.

I'm not sure how many more times I can say the same thing....

*They charge $6000 to provide you with a shorted 55 gallon drum (45 gallons) of infusion epoxy. (Just upped the price drastically 1/1)

*They do not provide you with cure times for various temperatures.

*This means MAS is not worth it - costs too much, has no temperature dependent hardener instructions, as every other epoxy does.

I really can't figure out how else to say this so that people understand. Please read and re read the bullet points until you understand them.

 

I have not done infusion yet or built anything on the scale of your hull, so I won't babble on much more. I've worked with west system and system three and generic epoxy from an industrial company who filled 5-gallon jugs for me when I drove in. The system three and west system containers have some information printed on them, but I never got detailed literature or temperature schedules with resin. I've never done infusion. Based on my limited experience, I would plan to ask for the information I need before I order.

There is some inconsistency in what has been posted:

compared with you saying that

Can you list the manufactures who did provide you good temperature charts for mixing your infusion resins and all the data needed?
That would be very useful when I do finally try infusion myself after reading about it for 20 years.

 

Happy to post my experiences...

Raka: Received temperature specific information, but most was verbal.

System Three: Outstanding. Received temperature specific information and customized hardener sample for infusion. Not even on their website, but they were willing to work with me and develop an infusion epoxy from their standard line.

Momentive: Outstanding as well. Took my requests for specific minimum tensile strengths, elongation, mixing techniques, Tg, max working temp, etc... all into account and came up with an infusion formulation that works, including temperature specific guidelines for the accelerator.

West System: Never used them, but obviously they tell you how to vary the kick rate with different temperatures by using various hardeners. Everyone does this.

Are you serious that you have never got information that tells you that a specific epoxy works from say, 40F to 80F and what amount of working time you have before that epoxy gels? I've never even seen an epoxy that doesn't have that information. Just Google up "epoxy, working time, gel time, open time", etc... and thousands of pages show up talking about specific epoxy products and their gel time or open time. For example:

http://www.systemthree.com/reslibrary/tds/SYS3_TDS.PDF

Notice how that epoxy works from 35F to 75F (and above, or course). They have specific cure times at specific temperatures to guide you in deciding what ratios of Fast to Medium to Slow hardeners to use. The epoxy obviously works from 35F to 100F or above and you know about how long you have before it starts to gel by looking at this sheet. That's all I had asked MAS for. They have a 2 part hardener - a super slow Infucure hardener that you accelerate by adding varying amounts of Fast to. Depending on how much you add, the epoxy kicks at different rates. However, they have not compiled any data on how much to add to a standard 150g mass of epoxy for different temperatures and give no guildeines or data sheets indicating how the change in accelerator will affect open time, even at a single, 77F data point.

Essentially, this means it's all guess work for the end user.

And... 45 gallons of it is $6000 with hardener. As a data point, System Three is about $4000, Momentive is about $3000. With both of those companies, you also get 10 gallons more resin (15 gallons mixed epoxy) than MAS.

Hence, the title of this thread.