resin or epoxy for transom

[chrisvazquez1]

im rebuilding my transom and im using 2 1" pieces of plywood. called boat builder central today to order some filler. the gentleman informed me that the best filler to use as a glue would be wood flour because its not as "brittle" as silica/cabosil. he also told me that he did not recommend using resin because it woudl eventually peel off, maybe in six months maybe in 3 years but eventually would literally peel off. ive heard great things about poly. resin and feel comfortable using it but would just liek to know if its suitable for a transom rebuild. also, wht type of filler should i use with resin?

[bigeasy1]

Do you mean what type of resin to use to glue the plywood together with?
Epoxy is the only way to go for gluing the ply together.Polyester would not be good in that application.Personally for a thickener,i like cabosil to thicken epoxy resin for gluing applications.I've done a few transoms and never had a problem with it.

AS for the polyester resin,i would't try to use it for gluing the plywood together.It's not flexible,and it does'nt adhere well enough or sink into the woody,like epoxy does.Go with an epoxy resin.

[JohnB]

BoatBuilder is giving you good advice. I would use epoxy, and I would use wood filler, the cabasol/silica is VERY brittle and hard, and will crack. I used woodflour for almost every thickening application.

[Old'sCool]

I used woodflour for almost every thickening application.

HaHa....so does (did) Breyers Ice Cream! Or at least they used their rail cars to load it at the lumber mill I worked at.

[chrisvazquez1]

spoke to smurf over at mirage boats today. he recommended using "gp" resin. its not as expensive and is a better quality resin. anyone have any knowledge of this?

[oldbluesplayer]

can't help you on the "gp" resin, but I will second what the others said - Use Epoxy resin, not polyester resin, when doing your transom. I might suggest, in-between the two sheets of ply, to also use a sheet of matt glass, well soaked out in resin.

Bill

[Bigshrimpin]

Epoxy is great stuff . . . but I don't think it's the only resin that will work for your application. Your boat builder friend might be referring to a "GP" general purpose epoxy (hopefully not "GP" polyester). If your not doing work in close quarters (near neighbors), you can save quite a bit of money using iso-polyester over epoxy. I find that polyester wets out the fabric better and is generally easier to use than epoxy.

[Islandtrader]

If money is no object, and you want an easy and simple way. Go to the systems 3 web sight, and look at Silver Tip Gelmagic. I have used this and it it wonderful.

Gel Magic

[bigeasy1]

As bigshrimpin stated,maybe he meant general purpose epoxy resin.I've used System Three General purpose epoxy resin on three transoms,and it performed flawlessly.
Also as stated,a polyester or vinylester resin can be used to do the remaining glass layup at a lesser cost than epoxy.
They will wet out many types of material far easier than epoxy.

I did the transom on my 23 Tsunami with epoxy to laminate the plywood core,and layed up the interior skin and stringer tie ins with 1708 fabric and polyester resin.
I've also used the gel magic by system three,and as island said,it works super,although i think it's kind of pricey to use on a transom.
Try this site,he has good prices, good shipping and is a a good guy with tech help.
www.mertons.com

[mnwnvc]

I used West System epoxy and their cloth products. No problems. Watch your working temps. Great tech info from their site is available.