KRNetHeads, I spent a few minutes checking out Jeffco epoxy this morning, and apparently some folks have had serious reactions to it, similar to what I had with Epon/Versamid twenty years ago. Vinylester is indeed nasty stuff, and the smell alone is enough to banish it from any human dwelling/basement forever. I did use it a couple of years ago to make an 8 gallon fuel tank, and I built the thing in less than a day, thanks to its quick curing time and the 105F temperatures in the hangar! It is the resin of choice for fuel tanks, as Dan mentioned. That's what it was designed for...gasoline/ethanol resistance.
Jim Faughn says he built N891JF entirely of vinylester, so the fuel tank should be good to go, assuming he used the Durakane that Aircraft Spruce was selling at the time. So it apparently does cure eventually. Curing depends on lot on the level of activation. I can tell you that it will cure solid as a rock in 20 minutes at 105F with just a couple of drops in 8 ounces of resin! Having said all of this, I hate the smell of the stuff, and only put up with it for the fuel resistance properties. I'm still a big fan of Aeropoxy until I see a good argument to the contrary. The only issue I have with West is based on nothing more than the "this-is-so-easy-mixing" business of the metering pumps. Leaving your mixtures to the vagaries of twin pumps is too much for me to trust. I weigh my Aeropoxy out on a gram scale to an exact ratio by weight, so I can be pretty sure I've got it right. Pumping on a five year old pump that has a bunch of gunk in it is a total crap shoot, in my judgment. You really have no idea what kind of mixture, with what kind of strength, you just built your plane out of. Some people would probably check that regularly ( and I'm sure Brian is one of those guys), but others would just soldier on making parts and never think of doing that. I guess that's my contribution to the "resin war". I've spent the weekend soldering up transponder, radio, iBox, and RDAC connectors for the N891JF panel. It's almost spaghetti now! Still a ways to go though. There are a few photos of the 8 gallon fuel tank I built at the top of http://www.n56ml.com/900hour/. I really need to add a few words to that, but a vinylester tank that doesn't leak a drop can literally be built in a day or two and slid into the wing for under a hundred bucks... Mark Langford ML at N56ML.com website at http://www.N56ML.com --------------------------------------------------------
