To many people, summer means time on the lake or in the ocean boating or jet skiing. But have you ever stopped to consider how boats and other water craft are built? In almost every case, the high-tech water vessels of today use some form of fiber construction and epoxy curing.
Epoxy Construction on Water Vessels
Not everyone stops to think about how their jet ski was built when their speeding across the lake at 40 mph. Nor do many think about the same sort of thing as they’re sitting in their finely crafted boat, fishing or watching friends or family water ski. But such a thought is certainly worth addressing, even if it’s long before or after all the fun is over.
Unless you’re out enjoying the water in an older, traditional wooden or aluminum boat, you’re likely sitting in a piece of modern engineering, the type that involves high-quality plastics, glass fibers (sometimes referred to as glass-reinforced plastics – aka: fiberglass) and on some occasion, even carbon fiber. Most boats and jet skis these days are built using such composite materials. And where such composites as these exist, there’s also the need for some heavy-duty resins.
Composites such as fiberglass and carbon fiber are bound together using high-grade epoxy resins. These resins both bind and coat the material in a hard, nearly impervious shell—making for very strong construction. For those familiar with epoxy curing, it’s apparent that the primary challenge is temperature. Most epoxies cure well above room temperature, and when you’re dealing with construction as big as boats, such an endeavor becomes all the more difficult.
Some boat manufacturers take a lot of time and resources to construct large ovens or rooms in which they can pump heated air in order to bring the temperature up to the ideal range for epoxy curing. As you can imagine, such an undertaking requires a lot of patients, not to mention it creates a lot of downtime.
This is why Powerblanket is pleased to offer the boat-manufacturing world a much better solution. With Powerblanket curing blankets, a manufacturer can saves thousands of dollars and hours of time just on one boat build. Our curing blankets allow epoxy to cure at its ideal temperature for as long as needed. What’s more, Powerblanket curing blankets are available in ready-to-ship and customizable sizes and shapes.
