Question:
Last weekend I was at a home & garden show where numerous garage cabinet
sellers were also providing a service to coat your garage floor with a
2-part epoxy finish. I noticed that my local HomeDepot carries a similar
epoxy product for do-it-yourselfers.
I'm wondering how different the HomeDepot product is compared to what the
cabinet installers are offering. Has anyone used either of these two
products? Experiences?
Answer:
I can tell you a bit about epoxy. As a boatbuilder ,we use a bit...
There are about three major MANUFACTURERS of epoxy resin, everyone else
is a reseller. Yeah, they may tweak the formulation a smidge
but....these MANUFACTURERS are guys like Shell Oil...
Folks like WEST System, System Three, MAS, RAKA, etc. etc. all sell a
complete line of epoxy, thickeners, cloth, etc. and are on the web if
you're interested. RAKA seems to have the best prices, but geeze, I
don't want to start that fight! We see enough over in
rec.boats.building.
There have been other folks who specialize in rotten window repair -
once again, same old stuff ,just a different wrapper, do you kind of get
the picture?
Anyway, epoxy can be a MESS!!!! If you want to coat your floor, you'll
need to put some non-skid in the coating or it'll be a very slick
surface :-) Epoxy will be about as thick as maple syrup and can be
thickened with silica, microballoons, etc. to a consistency of peanut
butter. The more complete system allow you to adjust the "pot life"
anywhere from about 10 minutes to an hour or more. This is all
temperature dependent!!!! Epoxy has no where near the odor of polyester
resin (yuk) and believe me, will stick about anything to anything
(except waxed paper and some plastics, which is a good thing by the way)
Don't know about the Home Depot product, I don't buy my epoxy there....I
suspect, however, that if you FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS and PLAN AHEAD, that
you'll have a successful project.
Does this help?
