CPES where from

When I typed in CPES Epoxy into my search engine, (not Yahoo) it came up with:

http://www.epoxy-info.co.uk/index.html

http://www.workbenchmagazine.com/main/wb296-deckfinish01.html

http://www.airproducts.co.uk/chemicals/e...;OVMTC=advanced


This might be a first step from which you might get specialised info? There were plenty of companies in the USA who sell the stuff like Smiths of California.

I also stumbled across this set of messages too:

http://www.woodenboatvb.com/vbulletin/upload/showthread.php?p=594081
 
i,ve enqired to the states about it but the shipping costs are a joke because its classed as a hazardous substance
 
Lot of posts about it on the Wooden Boat Magazine forum [American]. It seems to be popular in the USA but not much heard about it here. Any YBW Forumites tried it? is it any good?
 
CPES appears to be a trade mark in the states (CPES™ (Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer™)) from the rot doctor site. IIRC there were many wonder claims in the building trade about an epoxy that you poured onto/into rotten wood and it magically became solid.
A quick search for penetrating epoxy brought up all sorts of magic goos. My agba coach roofs are epoxy treated and varnished over to protect the epoxy from UV. 8 years on they still look like real wood with just varnish. Only hassle is 8 years on the varnish is thick and in the process of being removed to refresh it.
just one example of a supplier is boatbuilding supplies.
boatbuiding supplies
 
It is possible to make epoxy runny and penetrating by adding meths before mixing in the catylist.
I used to use it for plank end-grain when I had a woody. Got the tip from the US Wooden Boat forum.
 
Gordonmc said:
It is possible to make epoxy runny and penetrating by adding meths before mixing in the catylist.
I used to use it for plank end-grain when I had a woody. Got the tip from the US Wooden Boat forum.
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+1 being doing it a lot.
have been using isopropyl alcohol (or whatever it translates to English) but the 99.9% pure one is more expensive than the epoxy!
so changed to another 3euro/lt alcohol which is making epoxy even more runny.

V.
 
I used Lignu CPES on a Douglas Fir mast (stripped it back to bare obviously), followed by 6 coats of Blakes 2-pack varnish all in quick succession with no rubbing down. If you 2-pack varnish over the top of it soon enough then you get a chemical bond between the epoxy and the varnish (so they say). It looked fantastic and was very durable - even where an operator error with the gaff caused some compression of the wood the epoxy/varnish combination hadn't cracked 3 years later. I imported the Lignu from Holland, it was eye-wateringly expensive, and funnily enough is about as runny as eye water (which it needs to be to penetrate properly).
 
parsifal said:
Hellish expensive though....

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A fair comment, it is expensive, but it does work.
My most recent three uses were:
1) Repairing four large hexagonal softwood columns which hold my sons bedroom up. The bottoms were rotten as can be due to poorly maintained guttering above. Those posts would have cost me over £500 just for the timber, let alone the cost of propping / dismantling and then rebuilding the room. In that context around £100 which it cost me to import 2 litres of CPES (Lignu) from Sweden was a bargain. The whole repair took an afternoon and is structurally sound today, 6 years later.
2) Sealing new Oak structural timbers before installing them into my house during refurbishment. Hard to quantify return here as I will probably be dead before the oak rotted even without the CPES sealing treatment.
3) Sealing new hardwood window frames in the same house. I am part way through putting around £15,000 worth of new Oak window frames into the house. It will cost around £100 to seal the lot of them with CPES prior to painting, in fact it would cost a similar amount in materials for any decent breathable primer. The first coat of paint will last at least twice as long due to the CPES priming, and the windows probably also twice as long. I think it costs around that much money to have one window painted, every few years, so the return on investment here is just astronomical. There is a significant amount of material on the internet demonstrating the long durability of top coatings applied over CPES, and in fact a nice little mast story on this same thread.

I guess you pays your money and makes your choice; for me, I hate painting, and have a timber framed house in a damp location, so I just love the stuff.
 
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