I know that many use Envirotex as I do for modelling our water.
This is not hobby related. I need to know if old, already cured Envirotex will melt or at least surface melt by using a commercial heat gun or propane torch.
A friends house was broken into and the beautiful bartop (slab of treetrunk) was vandalized as the thief chiseled gold and silver pieces out of the bar. The idiot even hacked at dollar bills thinking he could remove them. He was caught, but it doesn’t fix the bar.
Very little damage to the stained wood, but the Envirotex is chewed up. I am hoping to smooth the hacked areas, but still need to bring them to a gloss so that repouring the repairs won’t show.
I don’t have any spots on the layout to experiment with, and don’t want to go blindly attacking the bartop. I was hoping someone has experience with reworking the product. Just the recoating after repairs is a project in itself.
Hoping that the plastic resin will work like melting fiber optics to heat clear the cuts.
Why don’t you coat something with envirotex in a manor similar to the bar, let it cure a few days (or weeks), scrape it up, and then see if you can repair it?
Sanding and recoating are your only real options. Heat will will yellow the epoxy. Sand any raised areas, fill low areas with fresh envirotex until even, then recoat the whole surface until everything blends back together.
Those products that fix chips and scratches in windshields and eyeglasses are just a clear product that fills in the scratches. Once filled in, they are invisible.
Therefore, if it was me, I would grab a peice of scrap wood, coat it, scratch it, and try recoating to fill the scratch.
I second the motion. Finished a lot of wood with Polyurethane, and put second and third coats of modeler’s resin on layout water, and you can fill very irregular surfaces to perfection, as long as the remaining first coat is solid material and adhered to the substrate.
Where thick resin was scarred and a thick coat still remained, I’d belt sand it till everything left was well adhered. For thin areras, orbital sanding to bare wood or clear resin. The very next coat will yield beautiful results, but the next sanding session will make it ugly again. Continue till OOOO steel wool is all you need to remove surface imperfections.
This would probably be the time to get a professional refinisher if this bar top is a real showpiece and if you want it back to something like 95-98% of what it was.
I agree that it has to be stripped, abraded, sanded,…something…right down to the first bits of wood, touched up as necessary, and then the layering started all over again. The finish, even if it isn’t 100% of what it used to be, will still be darned good…and worth it.
There are two main types of plastics out there. there are thermoplastics (like polycarbonate, lexan, styrene, plastic that most rolling stock and locomotives aremade out of) and Thermal Plastics (epoxies, envirotex, Resins)
Thermoplastics can be heated and reshaped numerous times. heat is how they are form into the complex shapes we see (injection molding).
Thermal plastics are produced but chemical reactions. Envirotex (and all epoxies) is a thermal plastic. You know the catalyst you have to add to cause the Envirotex to harden, this is a chemical compound that causes the plastic to set. Once this type of plastic has set it cannot be heated and reformed it will turn to something similar to jelly after being heated and turn yellow. A heat gun will only damage the plastic surface more.
As mentioned before the best bet is to sand and resurface it with a new coat.
Thanks for all the replies. I was very leery of trying any form of heat. I is good to know that even if some scratches from smoothing and scraping are evident that a new coat will clear the finish. Totally stripping the bar is not an option. This was custom built and stained to match other existing woodwork some 40 years ago. The wood has aged that honey orange which I find difficult to duplicate. The resin coat is almost 3/16". I’ll try some extremely sharp chisels and hook scrapers first. Then a few easy coats, wish me luck.