Newbie To Resin

[kenshapiro2002]

Although I used to build and customize plastic kits in the 60s and 70s, I;ve never worked with Resin. I have a ful scale Corvair Lakewood station wagon, and recently got a resin body of one on eBay. Any idea where this kit came from? Anyway, I've amassed the interior, wheels etc., but want some basic information about wirking with the resin body, putting in glass etc. Does it glue just like plastic? Any tutorials or sites I should look to before proceeding?

Thanks,

Ken

[kenshapiro2002]

Short and sweet. Resin is much softer than styrene and therefore cuts and sands easier. You have to use super glue or epoxy. I prefer two part five minute epoxy for assembly and emery boards for sanding. Opinions from others may vary. I hope this is helpfull.

Very...thanks.

[W-409]

Resin bodies are pretty fragile stuff too, so don't drop them.

And before painting, remember to wash the body, since there is usually some Grease used in the molding, and paint doesn't stick to the body.

[Scuderia]

And if you have to do any bodywork, wear a mask. You don't want to inhale resin dust

[kenshapiro2002]

Thanks all!

[dimaxion]

The Body might be from a caster in AZ. I think . He might be on . I have recently lost all of my contacts and stored information due to a Hacker .

I have one of his full kits . Needs work . IMHO , no worse than R&R . Not as much as TKM . It is among the "Vairs" unbuilts .

[southpier]

resin is generally thicker than styrene. may influence your choice, but often there is only a resin body available for specific vehicles.

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/R/resintips.pdf

http://reviews.ebay.com/Working-with-Resin-Model-Kits?ugid=10000000002768635

http://armorcast.com/Armorgeddon/index.php?topic=16.0

http://armorcast.com/Armorgeddon/index.php?topic=16.0

these are just some general information sites from a "dogpile" search

[Art Anderson]

And if you have to do any bodywork, wear a mask. You don't want to inhale resin dust

The known health hazards for polyurethane resins all tend to come from the liquid components themselves, due to their nature. Yes, resin dust is a hazard, particularly in industrial situations (think furniture factories--a lot of those "carved wood applique decorations applied to otherwise wood furniture are often resin-castings), factories making automotive soft trim such as soft bumper covers, factories making "faux stone" countertops for kitchen and bathroom use, and more and more, factories making urethane resin decorative wall tiles) where the cured resin is either sawed or sanded in large quantities. There, dust is a very real issue, and for the same reasons it is around fiberglas fabricating, even woodworking.

Solidified cast urethane resin is, for all intents and purposes, inert to any water or water-containing situations--it does not dissolve in water, thus no contaminants are likely to be released. However, the dust, being inert as regards water, won't break down in the human body (from all I've read over the past nearly 25 years), but the dust can collect in breathing passages, and remain there essentially for life.

All that said, the vast majority of model builders' contact with urethane (or for that matter, polyester) resin is in the form of already cast articles, which generally need at least a bit of trimming or cleanup around the mold parting lines, or edges.

Cutting tools, such as your Xacto knife, razor saw, files, or the rotary high-speed or carbide cutters used in a Dremel or similar tool create almost all "chips" as they work, and relatively little dust, unlike sandpapers or sanding discs or drums. If one watches the waste coming off a razor saw in action, those chips fall very readily to the floor, they don't float in midair. Nor do the chips coming off a rotary cutter, those come off in a stream that gravity pulls down to the floor, and very little in the way of dust.

In our hobby, the most dust gets created by using sandpapers dry--and most of us do not do that. No, we tend to use Wet or Dry sandpapers, soaked in water, which captures the sanding dust, leaving a muddy surface on the model being sanded, and in the dish, bowl or cup of water being used (and a lot of us do that sort of sanding at a sink, with running water. At stages during a project, we do tend to wash down the body shell or whatever is being sanded, which takes the dust and flushes it down a drain someplace. At any rate, the amount of dust we release into the surrounding air is at best, miniscule, particularly in comparison to spray painting with either rattle can (a HUGE source of dried paint dust, BTW) or airbrush (much less overspray dust from those as a general rule). So, use your own common sense here--if you feel that a facemask is necessary, by all means use one. However, if one does not view the occasional bit of dust from any source in the model room to be a hazard, probably little to worry about.

As for carcinogens, I just read several assorted MSDS (Manufacturer's Safety Data Sheets, required under OSHA for all chemicals or chemical-based materials sold for use in industry or consumer use) for polyurethane resins. Nowhere in those did I find any concerns expressed about potential cancer causing materials.

I spent 11 years actively casting resin model car parts of all kinds and sizes, and by the 10's of thousands. Others, such as Don Holthaus, have by now produced well into the millions of resin parts over their careers. Of all the resin casters I've known, two passed away years ago, both from cardiovascular situations apparently not related to their casting model car parts in urethane resin (both worked at it part-time, alongside their regular day jobs).

But in any event, if one is doing so much sawing and sanding of any material, including metals, resins, or wood, to the point that dust is settling on every horizontal surface, then yes, by all means WEAR AN APPROPRIATE face mask (and this certainly applies to any spray painting unless you are doing it out of doors, or have a proper exhausting spray booth to remove both overspray particulates and the solvent fumes from your surrounding environment (your model building room or space).

Art

[charlie8575]

If we can find out who made that Lakewood (or is still making it,) sign me up for one.

Ken- are you on the Lakewood group on Yahoo!?

Charlie Larkin