I bought this at home depot today. I figured it would work well to make some epoxy ramps. What do you think and does anyone have experience with this product?

Thanks.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2008 03:01AM by Scott Lamb.

Personally, I recommend sticking with proven products designed (or at least tested) for the rod building industry. I am not going to say it won't work ... But do you REALLY want to be the guy to find out it doesn't?

Hi Scott,

My concern with that epoxy is the time, 6 minutes does not give much time to work it. Maybe some of the guys that do ramps all the time could build them within the 6 minutes but if your new at doing them 6 minutes may not be enough time.

Hank
On The Rocks Fishing
Wells, ME.

If you have never done a ramp 6 min.'s will give you trouble the first time or two. Practice on some wood dowels or scrap blanks first, then when you feel comfortable doing ramps do your rod. Remember 6 min.'s is not long so you can do several ramps in a very short time!
The gel will work just fine I still prefer the regular Devcon 5 min epoxy.

Don't forget keep the rod spinning the entire time and a little extra time to keep from getting sags.

One last thought remember to leave the ramp shy of the finished height, so you can finish off with thread or paint or a coat or two of regular finish.

I use the Flex Coat 5 minute. Like Tim suggested, it may take you a time or two to get it down "pat", but once you do, 5 min is PLENTY of time. And....if the ramp stinks, CUT it off with a razor blade while it's still somewhat soft, sand down what you need too (not much if any!!) and do it again......dont ask me how I know! :-)

DR

Thanks everyone. I will stick with the proven products and practice a bit before working on the rod.

Scott,

It's real easy, dont sweat doing one, just do it. Even if you dont like the results, see above, they're easy to "re-do" when still warm.

DR

i was experimenting with some ramps today and i was thinking to myself, "there must be some type of epoxy i can buy at lowes for cheaper than rodbuilding epoxies." let us know how it turned out.

Epoxy is epoxy is epoxy. Don't be arobot and never stop thinking outside the box - this craft has been stuck in teh mud for way too long in that respect. Look at Embroidery thread, until recently, teh majority of builders only considered Nylon or NCP. Fortunately, someone went out on a limb to test out thread not ment fo rRodbuilding, and ended up revolutionizing the industry. lol.

I dont agree. Epoxy is not Epoxy. How well they fair against WATER will be the proving factor cos the box stores also sell marine epoxy that sells for more than rod building epoxy. Do your tests or just go fishing on sunny days.

Jason Kesckes. Aint no fish'n like bass fish'n

About 15 years ago I saw a presentation at a RodCrafters seminar where the presenter used U40 ROD BOND. He first added a tint to it to make it the color he wanted then made a Winding Check on a rod. It worked good. Good for those of us who: want a little different winding check, who want to make a thread ramp, who forgot to put a winding check on the rod and only realized it after the guides were wrapped on the rod ;>)

Kerry

you can try adding some alcohol to the 5 min epoxy... it would make it more fluid and extend the pot life by may be 5 more mins... but 5 mins epoxy sure stinks and smell bad. But beware of bubbles if you dont intend to wrap over the ramp...