How to Mix and Measure Epoxy | TotalBoat with Xyla Foxlin

you know what helps epoxy mix dance

moves hey everyone zy foxom here and today we are at botal tote and I'm going to show you guys how

to mix and measure your epoxy properly because like if you screw this up your whole project is

the first most important thing you're going to want to check is the mix ratio so this one for

example is 2:1 and this one is 3: 1 so make sure you get that right there are also five to ones

and one to ones and that's about it another easy mistake to make is temperature so epoxy is super

temperature sens temp epoxy is super temperature sensitive just like me and so pretty much the

happiest it is is when I am happy which is about 70° so like a nice t-shirt temperature and you're

going to get a really good cure if it is too hot you have the potential for a runaway exothermic

reaction which basically means it's going to cure really quickly and bubble and smoke and if it's

too cold it'll either take a really long time to cure be cloudy or sometimes might not even cure at

all something that's been really helpful for me is to just have a thermometer in my shop so I know if

it's a really good epoxy pour day or if it's a day where I'm going to have to add heat another random

tip on temperature that I have not cleared with total B but I'm going to say it anyway is that

when it's too cold and you like have a deadline and you need to mix epoxy I always heat the epoxy

up separately so I'll pour the hardener into one cup and I'll pour the resin into another cup and

I'll heat gun them individually and then mix the warm epoxies together and that's kind of a safer

way of doing it than trying to heat the mixed epoxy a pro tip is to always take your time with

epoxy and make sure everything is set up and ready to go because once you start mixing you're on a

time crunch so like have your cups ready have your if you're doing fiberglass lay out your fiberglass

get everything done before you start mixing and always be sure to take your time with epoxy go

slow measure everything ahead of time if you're doing fiberglass lay out the fiberglass before

you start if you're pouring into a mold make sure your molds are clean and ready to go and leveled

because once you start mixing epoxy you are on a timer and you don't want to let the epoxy just sit

in the cup for a really long time and once you are ready to mix there's a couple easy ways that you

can measure the quantities of epoxy so I think the easiest way is calibrated pumps these are

like pre-calibrated to two to one so one pump of the resin and one pump of the hardener will give

you that correct 2:1 ratio the problem with the pumps is if you're pouring a lot of epoxy your

arm can get really tired and I don't like doing any amount of physical labor so that's a lie all I

do is sand things but you can use the mixing cups as a measuring tool so for example if I was going

to use this resin and I wanted to do this is a two to1 so I'm going to use I'm going to find

the column that says 2 to1 which is that one um and say I want about that much resin so like my

total end end number is here so I'd pour resin up to here and then with the resin in the cup pour

hardener up to here and then I have the correct ratio and the third way to do this is by wait if

you want to do it by weight congratulations you've chosen the most exact way to do it however you

have to remember that the density of the two of the resin and the hardener is different so

it's not exactly 2: one so be sure to check the technical data sheet or the TDS on the product

page on the website um I can tell you that the high performance is 100 to 45 so it'll be close

but it won't be exact so make sure you double check and do the math I know you love math we

all love math all right now that we have extremely accurately measured our r in our hardener into a

mixing cup it is time to actually mix it up so the first thing that we're going to do is wear

gloves some people make putting on gloves look cool I'm not one of those people for mixing you

want to mix for about 3 to 5 minutes and while you're mixing be sure that you're scraping the

sides you're scraping the bottom getting like all of those parts be sure you're not mixing

too fast you don't want to introduce too many air bubbles in so just keep it at a nice slow

steady pace for 3 to 5 minutes and the epoxy will give you a really good visual indic indicator that

it is mixing well cuz you can see the two parts and eventually it'll start turning clearer and

clearer until it's mixed total V's best practiced mixing method is to actually take your mixed epoxy

and pour it into a clean cup and this will help ensure that any unmixed bits that are sticking

to the sides of this cup don't get transferred over and so then you give it yet another nice

little mix in your clean cup and you're ready to pour and now you know how to mix and measure

epoxy accurately every single time thank you so much from all of us here at B tote [Music] bye