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Envirotex Lite coating tips



Original poster: Vardan <vardan01@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Hi,

I coated my little coil with Envirotex Lite (available at any hobby or hardware store) today.

http://www.eti-usa.com/consum/envtex/envlite.htm

It is cool stuff!! Add had a few issues mostly due to the fact I had no idea at all what I was doing 0:o))) Here are my tips:

1. Brush it on, don't "pour it" ;-)) It is too runny and tends to just fall off the coil. The fancy hardwood winder was covered with plastic so no big deal. Just use about a 1 inch (small coil) paint brush. The "cheap" (very cheap!!" brushes are fine. Probably those "sponge brushes" are perfect but I did not test that.

2. Use "thin" coats. It is a two part epoxy thing so you "can" make one coat like 1/8 inch think plus if you want to! But it gets bubbles and just is not real beautiful once it gets too thick. It looks very simple just to use multicoats of you want "thick". My single coat is like 1/16 inch :o)))

3. Bubbles - The bubbles normally rise to the surface and burst especially in the presence of CO2 from your breath or a "propane" torch. "NO heat!" it is just the CO2 "gas" that breaks the bubbles!! However, with the coil turning on the winder, gravity does not work and the bubbles can be trapped. A "thin" coat should take care of this fine.

4. Working time - Like hours, so don't rush ;-))) At about two hours it starts to set up and goes pretty fast from that point.

5. Smell - Does smell, sort of like epoxy on steroids. Not a bad thing, but you probably want a window fan. Not the type of smell that will kill you at all, but it does smell up the room for a few hours.

6. It does not take much!! For my 12 x 3 inch coil, mixing up 2 oz of the stuff would have been way too much (I did 8 oz ;-)) The remaining is making a pretty "paintbrush in epoxy" sculpture now... It is trivial to make more if you need it.

So even with screwups, it works just fine ;-)) Ignore the "pore and lots" tips in the printed instructions since that just help them sell more of it ;-)) If you have used two part epoxy stuff before, just throw the instructions away... It is one of those things that you will do far better the "second time" so no big deal to test it all on scraps first.

The coating looks bullet proof and easily repaired if (when) the car jack hit it. A thick glassy coating.

Cheers,

	Terry