- I was primarily interested in seeing how well the sealers performed over a 6 hour period, which is about the longest I can wetsuit at a stretch these days.
- The difference in the performance of the sealers (as a part of the system) was negligible to my mind – both for punctured and undamaged blanks. The tables do the best job of showing how close they are -- the charts had to be magnified in order to better show the visual separation.
- I have been using ESP-155. My assumption that this solvent-thinned epoxy protected punctured lures better than oil-based or urethane-based sealers isn’t appreciably true.
- With such similar performance, it’s easier for me to give more consideration to other factors. Epoxy sealing is greatly more expensive, so I will not be replacing it when I run out.
- I did not do a breakdown of safety-related issues with each sealer, as I didn’t feel qualified to say anything other than what has been said in other threads: Xylene/xylol and acetone should be left out of hobby plug building. It’s going to be much easier leaving this behind after this test.
- I will move on to sealing with the tung oil solution, primarily because I have an 80 oz jar of it, and it has held up to storage quite well (it wasn’t touched for 18 months prior to this test, and it had only a very light skim on it.)
A lot of work, but I’m glad I did it. Hope this helps someone else out.
Eric