Resin chemistry differences globally.

In a recent thread resin and gel coat properties were discussed, this probably deserves it own thread.

One problem that a forum like this runs into in discussing resin and gel coat is that there are many versions of each product and they can be distributed globally in odd ways. And this forum has members in all parts of the world that see differences in how products perform and may use them differently.

I have worked for global resin and gel companies for 30 years, and still do this on an almost daily basis. Gel coat that is sold in Europe can be significantly different in some ways than what's sold in North America. You can't take a normal European formula and sell it as is in North America, much of the European market doesn't allow atomization of gel coat, and that's the norm in America. That difference changes many aspects of the expectations of each market.

Then catalyst comes into play, it can vary a bit too. There are European catalyst formulas that aren't available in America and American versions that aren't available elsewhere. Then there are countries that are limited to very few catalyst options due the market being small and the distributors don't import many versions, or those versions may not be allowed in that country.

In North America there have historically been very large users of resin and gel coat, these individual companies get a great deal of attention and both products are fine tuned to their exact process and production needs. They buy truckloads and tanker loads of gel coat and resin several times per month all year for years at a time, and only this company will be buying those products. Another company building the same products may have very different versions of resin and gel coat because their process is different. A large customer can buy just about anything they want and have it customized to their needs. This makes for more resin and gel coat options because so much is being made.

Much of my job was to guide the customer through the exact resin and gel coat options, then fine tune those options to perform in the best possible way for their objectives. I would modify the viscosity, gel time, cure profile, blend of resins, etc to optimize their process with both products. The resin and gel coat options we had were rather numerous, and you could get lost in all the different formulas if you weren't very familiar with exactly how they work.

So when a person in one part of the world says xxx resin does this and it won't do that, it's based on what versions of these products are available locally to that person. And may be correct for their location and access to products, but not correct for other parts of the globe with access to different versions.

We currently have international versions of our products that have formulas for certain continents or countries. So while the goal is for them to perform identically, they may not, especially when you throw in the variable of what catalyst is available in their market, this catalyst may not even be available in N America to test with.

Plus the emissions regulations differ a great deal from one part of the world to another. Europe tends to be very strict, so those products are formulated in a certain way. In other parts of the world there are very few restrictions so the formulas can be just about about anything you want, this changes how these products perform in the shop and as the final product being sold by the composites manufacturer.