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Unread 13-01-2009, 12:43
coldfusion1279 coldfusion1279 is offline
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Re: Floor wearing away

gel coats are only about 25 mils thick... it wont take long to wear through that in the same spots over and over again.

I worked on gel coats for a year. We used the same polyester resin as the composite material for both the fiber glass substrate and the gel coat. The only difference is that gel coats usually have an additive to increase resistance to UV or water, and they usually have a nice color pigment added, in this case a snow white. Otherwise, polyester resin is a yellowish translucent material.

Polyester is cross-linked with styrene molecules, which are benzene rings. When the polyester burns or is ground in to fine particulate, the aromatic groups go airborne, giving off a pungent 'urine' smell as described. The MSDS for the Glasliner FRP leaves the field "carcinogenic" blank. Frankly they don't know if it is dangerous in such small quantities of dust. Likely not, but the MSDS is not complete yet.

There's your daily dose of materials science.
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