Talk Composites - The Forum for Advanced Composites

GC50 Epoxy Compatible Gelcoat - Vinylester Resin Compatibility

http://www.talkcomposites.com/Topic7025.aspx

By Azrulhaizi - 7/9/2013 10:54:46 AM

Hello Guys,

Need an opinion from experts here.

Does GC50 Epoxy Compatible Gelcoat goes along well with Vinylester based resin? Anyone have experience with this combination?

regards//Azrul
By Matt (Staff) - 7/31/2013 5:53:01 PM

Hi Azrul,

I'm not 100% clear from your post whether you want to know if the GC50 would be suitable as a gelcoat for vinylester based parts or whether you want to know whether GC50 would release nicely out of a vinylester based mould so I'll answer both scenarios.

If you were making parts out of a vinylester resin then I would not recommend that you use GC50 as an in-mould gelcoat (before laying up with the vinylester resin). GC50 is designed to be bonded to by epoxy resin and although there is some crossover in the chemistry of vinylesters with epoxy you won't find that a vinylester resin will bond properly to the GC50 Epoxy Compatible Polyester Gelcoat. Instead, it would be better (and cheaper!) to simply use a high quality Clear Polyester Gelcoat.

If instead you'd meant would the GC50 release nicely out of a mould that's been made using a vinylester gelcoat (like our Uni-Mould Tooling Gelcoat) or a vinylester resin system then yes, it would be perfectly fine. A good number of the members on this forum who are using GC50 are probably spraying (or brushing it) into vinylester based moulds.

I hope this helps,

All the best, Matt