Polyester And Epoxy Resins. What Are They And How To Use Them.
By Andros
()
About this ebook
In these books, I bring my experiences, in an attempt to be of help to someone, and especially in order to push not to stop at what I wrote. I hope that my words will make you want to find other techniques, try other materials and other ways to use them.
In fact, I often use materials against the purpose for which they were designed by manufacturers, because sometimes they cannot even imagine all their uses and all their potential. Manual practice, contact with the material and knowledge of its most intimate character, combined with curiosity, can lead to sometimes surprising discoveries.
The synthetic resins are basically young shoots, especially when compared to the ancient rocks and other materials that have always been protagonists of art. Some have not yet been explored in depth, their expressive potentials have not yet been highlighted and could well marry with artists able to understand their character and get the best out of them.
The goal of these books is also to give a starting point, to give birth to the curiosity and the desire to know these resins closely and to discover that with them a world of new stimuli is revealed to our desire to do.
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Polyester And Epoxy Resins. What Are They And How To Use Them. - Andros
Polyester and epoxy resins. What are they and how to use them.
Andros
––––––––
Translated by Nadia Holzknecht
Polyester and epoxy resins. What are they and how to use them.
Written By Andros
Copyright © 2018 Andros
All rights reserved
Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.
www.babelcube.com
Translated by Nadia Holzknecht
Babelcube Books
and Babelcube
are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.
Polyester and epoxy resins. What are they and how to use them.
By Andros
––––––––
Index
Introduction
Warnings
What are resins?
Synthetic resins
Unsaturated polyester resins
Epoxy resins
Additives, fillers and reinforcements
Additives
Fillers
Reinforcements
Materials
Manufacturers, distributors and retailers
Glossary
All the books of Andros:
Introduction
As I see it, synthetic resins are substances that give the possibility to get amazing effects, and to realize things that were once unthinkable. They also offer a field that is still largely unexplored, where you can still experiment, as in the past many artists have done with the classical techniques of sculpture and painting. These materials are still young, no one can tell about them there is nothing left to invent
: on the contrary, there is so much to experiment and invent.
In these books, I bring my experiences, in an attempt to be of help to someone, and especially in order to push not to stop at what I wrote. I hope that my words will make you want to find other techniques, try other materials and other ways to use them.
In fact, I often use materials against the purpose for which they were designed by manufacturers, because sometimes they cannot even imagine all their uses and all their potential. Manual practice, contact with the material and knowledge of its most intimate character, combined with curiosity, can lead to sometimes surprising discoveries.
The synthetic resins are basically young shoots, especially when compared to the ancient rocks and other materials that have always been protagonists of art. Some have not yet been explored in depth, their expressive potentials have not yet been highlighted and could well marry with artists able to understand their character and get the best out of them.
The goal of these books is also to give a starting point, to give birth to the curiosity and the desire to know these resins closely and to discover that with them a world of new stimuli is revealed to our desire to do.
It should however be said that no material, however exceptional, can make up for the shortcomings of those who use it, while even the poorest material can give excellent results if used by skilled hands.
These books do not want to encase the imagination in a few rules: it only offer ideas, suggestions, sometimes solutions, but never definitive and always susceptible to improvement.
The intent is to tickle the reader's mind, pushing it to experiment, and not to fall asleep with sterile formulas to be followed without discussion. The painter James Ensor said: The rules of art throw up death.
So have fun, try, smear, mess and be up to all sorts of things!
In these books, I will mention some of the most suitable products for the described uses and at the same time, I will suggest some alternatives to avoid the purchase of more expensive products, modifying the less expensive ones with easily available substances such as gypsum, oils, solvents or even simple bicarbonate.
The choice of using the specific product or the makeshift solution will only be to the reader, I will limit myself to describe the possibilities that I have been able to experience.
I have experimented the gimmicks to get the various possible effects on a wide range of products, but the amount of materials on the market is vast and constantly growing and updating; this makes it almost impossible to try them all. Therefore, similar products from different manufacturers could react in different ways, and some of the solutions I suggest may not work with certain products, or have different effects. For this reason, it is advisable to do the first tests with very small quantities, so you will avoid costly waste and the loss of working hours. This could also be an opportunity to make new tests, looking for other solutions, provided you work without recklessness and do not derogate from the basic rules for your own and others' safety.
In these books, numerous products are reported: it is not intended to be a complete catalog, but offers an overview of those of greatest interest. It is a sector in continuous movement: from one year to the next, some products go out of production while new ones are born; sometimes they are apparent novelties, other times the new materials are really innovative and it is good to keep an eye on the market, which is very easy to do thanks to the internet.
The first book of this series is dedicated to two of the most used resins: polyester and epoxy. It will also treat the glass fiber, which can be used with the two resins to obtain the fiberglass, and finally the fillers, which can be inserted into the resins for reasons that we will see in detail.
At the end of the volume, the reader will find: a list of the products discussed in the text, a list of some manufacturers, distributors or dealers who process the above products with possible addresses, internet sites, emails and telephone numbers. A short glossary, to explain many of the technical terms used in the italicized text, will close the book.
Warnings
The materials described in this book should be treated with the attention that any potentially harmful chemical deserves. It is important to avoid contact with the skin and even more with the eyes, and to work in a well-ventilated environment to avoid breathing fumes, vapors or emissions of any kind. Therefore, it is important to protect especially the eyes, the hands and the airways, with appropriate goggles, gloves and protective masks.
Regarding some resins, for example polyester, thin latex gloves are not enough, which could melt, better to use thicker ones, for example those used in the kitchen, or more resistant materials, such as nitrile or vinyl.
Even nitro and synthetic diluents, turpentine, acetone and all solvents, as well as paints and products containing them, are harmful by inhalation and by contact and must therefore be used with the same precautions.
Breathing thoroughly the turpentine vapors while working can damage the liver, benzene is a dangerous carcinogen, and even the toluene gets along well. Once nitro diluents were generally based on toluene, today they are mostly based on xylene, which is less dangerous, even if it can damage the brain. Those with toluene, however, are still on the market and cost even less than those made of xylene. In short, if you want to poison yourself less, you have to pay more!
By using these substances in the open air, do not expose them directly to the sun, because temperatures above 20°C increase the vapors. At temperatures that are too high, some products may catch fire. Take particular care when using spray cans, whether they are paint, polyurethane or any other kind, because if exposed to the sun they could explode, even if empty.
Attention must also be paid to the finished work, because even from a dry paint or from a polymerized resin the solvents evaporate for many days or weeks, and in some cases they continue to be present even for a few years. These vapors can be harmful for the elderly and children, but also for those suffering from asthma, sinusitis, bronchitis or is subject to allergies.
Today many products are made of water, and day by day you can find colors, paints, and, as we will see, even water-based resins, which often once cured, become completely non-toxic and even ingestible.
Again, however, it is sad to note that these products cost more than solvent-based ones, sometimes the difference is minimal, but more often it exceeds 20% more.
But we must not think that water
is synonymous with non-toxic
: it is not always the case. Handling these substances is therefore good to have the same cautions that you have in handling all the others.
What are resins?
Resins are polymers, a term that means 'many parts' invented by the Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius in 1833. Therefore, for example, polystyrene stands for many parts of styrene
, which is a monomer, that's why very often the names of resins start with 'poly': polyester, polycarbonate, polyethylene, etc.
Polymers are also called macromolecules: in fact, they are large molecules born from the union of small molecules called monomers; the reaction that unites these molecules, making them a polymer, is called polymerization.
Much of the study and understanding of polymers is due to Hermann Staudinger, a German chemist who demonstrated the existence of macromolecules, a word coined by him. He is considered the founder of polymer chemistry, and was among the first to predict the enormous potential of this science.
Polymers can be natural, artificial or synthetic. Among the natural ones we have amber, shellac, proteins, starch, cellulose and even DNA and RNA.
The artificial ones are obtained from the chemical transformation of the natural ones, for example the celluloid obtained from cellulose.
The synthetic ones are instead produced with petroleum derivatives, and are for example bakelite, PVC, PET, polyethylene and most of the existing resins.
Artificial and synthetic polymers are commonly called plastics.
Plastic is biodegradable in a very long time, it is assumed between 500 and 1000 years, and is an organic substance, just like wood or wool. It is usually composed mainly of oil, but also of substances such as salt and coal. Every year around 4% of the oil used in the world is used in the production of plastic materials.
Both natural and synthetic resins have had and still have a wide use in the art world, the first since ancient times, especially for the preparation of colors and final paints, the latter, as obvious, only since the