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For the first time in my life I bought some Loon thick UV finish and an LED light and used them on some crawdads I was tying. It doesn't seem to be a hard finish or tough. Does it hold up well when making heads on streamer type patterns? I guess I should have bought the thin for more penetration?
I've never used the Loon brand. I have Bug-Bond I picked up from Orvis, which i very durable, but gets cloudy on heavy applications. I also have a 3-tube set from I believe Hook and Hackle?...It's "Solarez" brand and comes in three types (Flex, Thick & Hard & Thin & Hard). Not impressed with it really. I prefer the Bug Bond.
I use the resin from Silver creek and it has always dried hard. NO tackiness.
Rick
Depends on the application and what you are trying to do. If you are just building up a clear head, then you want the thicker formula, no matter what the manufacturer. I have some of the Loon, and have used it for Clouser heads and the like, but still prefer epoxy if I have the time.
I'm just learning how I can use it.
Do you get more use out of the lite or the thick?
I'm with Rick Z. on the Silver Creek brand.
Just remember, the Hook and Hackle brand is half the price. Even the light is much less expensive.
You use the thin for a thinner coating. If it penetrates the uv light cannot reach it and it won't cure. It's a coating and not intended for penetrating surfaces.Quote:
Originally Posted by lastchance
I have tried several kinds of uv finish and found them easier to use than epoxy but not as durable.
flyfishfood.com did a UV resin "shootout". pretty informative and it was worth the read (at least to me).
What is it used for mostly? I'm trying to figure out for what I can use it.
i coat my thread midges with loon flow instead of sally hansens. i tie a lot of cracklebacks with a tinsel body and no herl (guess it's not really a crackleback). like to coat the tinsel body with flow, palmer the hackle while the flow is still wet and then cure it. seems to aid in durability. build heads and coat the eyes on my baitfish patterns with loon thick and then top it with flow or silver creek to cut the tack. soemtimes use it in place of head cement. coat wing cases with it. etc. etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by lastchance
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Brad
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaboom1
Now that's funny.Quote:
Originally Posted by Silver Creek
Back to lastchance's question, UV resin is used in any application epoxy might be used if it is the thick formulation, or like head cement or superglue in the thinner formulas, for the most part. I qualify the answer, because UV acrylic is not really useful as an adhesive, but good for building heads, or shaping surfaces. Useful because of the speed at which it cures, but I've never seen anything that I could do with UV material that I could not also do with a more traditional adhesive.
I have found that most of the tackiness problems come from weak batteries in your UV flashlight. New batteries will solve most of your problems.
Brad
Whatfly,
What's funny about that? Rules are rules. I did not make the rules. If you come to this BB and want to play, follow the rules.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaboom1
Tackiness can be caused by weak batteries but the tackiness in fly tying resins is most often caused by the resin formulation.
The failure to cure is due to the chemical formula of the acrylic polymer. These resins will NOT cure with the relatively low power UV flashlights.
Acrylate polymers cure by free radical polymerization which is started and maintained by the UV light. However, with free radical polymerization, the exposed surface of the polymer allows the free radical to bind with atmospheric oxygen to create a peroxy radical that slows the polymerization at the surface. This is called oxygen inhibition. Oxygen inhibition slows down the polymerization process, and the result is peroxy radicals on the surface that are incompletely polymerized.
The "tackiness" is the uncured peroxy radical polymer in reaction below:
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...ps5147bccf.jpg
Those who have taken basic chemistry know that every liquid, including liquid polymers are in a steady state with the oxygen in our atmosphere. So there is some dissolved O2 in liquid polymers. Oxygen inhibition also occurs under the surface and this weakens the inside of the ?cured? polymer.
If the polymerization is done in the absence of oxygen in a nitrogen atmosphere, or in a vacuum, the surface would polymerize.
The solution to a tacky surface is not to add a second coat that also fails to polymerize. The solution is to modify the chemistry of the acrylic polymer so that it is resistant to oxygen inhibition. There are such polymers and there are research papers on ways to minimize oxygen inhibition.
When I did my research into these polymers I found the problem was NOT finding an acrylic polymer formula that would resist oxygen inhibition. You can find them, but they are expensive to make especially in small quantities.
The problem is finding an acrylic polymer that is cheap enough to be used in fly tying, that has enough oxygen inhibition resistance to cure tack free with the thicknesses used in fly tying, that can be made in small amounts, and that can be completely cured with the hand held low power UV flashlights.