Thread: Tinting epoxy

Hi Arron,
I've used both the little bottles Prooftint by Westons and Botecoat tints (colours are limited) both work well in epoxy. You don't need much and as far as I'm aware the ratios needed are really trial and error. The black and white are easy, colours require some experimentation I'm afraid.

BTW I have also used the ochre used to tint concrete available from hardware stores it needs a lot of mixing to ensure there are no globs. It's OK for a solid colour look though like black.

As far as UV protection I assume the same rules apply as for untinted.

You can tint epoxy, but this can't serve as the finished product. The tint will protect the epoxy to a degree, but it will soon turn yellow, then tanish, then brown. In other words, epoxy needs to be protected from UV damage, which is a fairly big issue in some places down there. Therefore you should skip the tint and just prep the clear epoxy overcoat for paint. Since you're painting anyway, you could skip the epoxy barrier coat and go straight to primer.

My point is, unless you have a real need for epoxy on the aluminum, you can keep the fresh aluminum oxide in suspension while wet sanding with the primer and when this dries, it's just some small amount of aluminum oxide particulates, along with a bunch of other partials (like silica, micro balloons and talc) dried and in suspension in the primer (normal behavior for a partial in primer).

Is there a reason for the epoxy under coat on the aluminum?

Originally Posted by PAR

Is there a reason for the epoxy under coat on the aluminum?

Nope, no reason for the epoxy. I just didnt realise you could achieve this with paint. I'll probably get some alkyd primer and 240 grit paper and go ahead. Then a topcoat of marine paint in the preferred colour.

thanks for the advice
cheers
Arron

I wouldn't use 240 under primer. Any reasonable primer will easily fill the scratches from 180 grit. 240 is pushing the boundary with surface "tooth". I wouldn't use higher then 220. Save the really fine papers for smoothing topcoat, though honestly, I rarely use higher then 220 on these too.

Originally Posted by PAR

I wouldn't use 240 under primer. Any reasonable primer will easily fill the scratches from 180 grit. 240 is pushing the boundary with surface "tooth". I wouldn't use higher then 220. Save the really fine papers for smoothing topcoat, though honestly, I rarely use higher then 220 on these too.

OK. Thanks for your help
cheers
Arron