REFLECTOR: Wing Delamination question

[Richard Riley]

At 05:48 PM 3/5/2006, you wrote:
>May be true...dunno.....but there was a thread a few years ago that said
>that our epoxy WOULD eat/soften blue foam (IT DOES HAVE STYRENE in
>it...wouldn't that cause some melt possibilities?)

Maybe, if you're using RAE-F or RAE-S (Rutan Aircraft Factory, Fast 
and Slow) epoxy.

The modern epoxies have so little styrene in them (none, in most 
cases, like Aeropoxy, MGS, ProSet) that it's not an issue.

>...therefore ONE of
>the reasons to mix a slurry (and one of the reasons some advocated hard
>shelling before applying fiberglass) was to avoid potential
>softening/melting of the blue foam........

Think of it this way.  Let's say we have Nitric Acid, and we know 
that it will eat through skin.  But for some reason we have to spread 
some Nitric Acid on our skin.

So we mix it with sand.  Sand is inert and won't be affected by the 
nitric acid.

We spread it on our skin, and find that our skin is wet with nitric acid!

Same thing with micro slurry.  If the epoxy is bad for the foam as a 
pure liquid, it will do the same thing to the foam as a micro slurry.