West Systems Epoxy

[Glenn Cummins G Cummins Guitars]

Hi Corey,

It’s a marine grade epoxy for the boat building industry. To me that means it’s a high quality epoxy and more than capable of dealing with whatever a guitar can throw at it.

I’ve used it for gluing truss rod filler strips, laminating sides and even as a bare wood grain filler. I use epoxy for joints were I don’t want to add any moisture or will be gluing Two differing materials together.

I did have a problem with it soaking into spruce end grain and effectivley staining the wood when gluing a rosette. Won’t be doing that again.

I’ve heard it needs to be measured accurately (don’t they all?). I’ve always used scales and to the recommended ratio and never had any curing problems. It dries glass hard.

It is sold in kg’s which is rather a lot of epoxy but they also sell a small junior pack, at least they do in the UK. Shelf life is about 2 years from memory.

Cheers.

Glenn.

[Brock Poling]

I use West Systems almost exclusively for my epoxy applications. My main products are the 105 (resin) and 205 (hard hardener) and 206 (slow hardener). They both cure very hard with virtually no creep. I have had product in the shop for 3+ years with no issues in terms of curability.

The 205 hardener will get an amber color to the liquid over time, but I don’t notice the color in my joints (but I am often using it on rosewood / ebony / mahogany applications so YMMV.

I have had a lot of bad experiences with other epoxies and I’ve just made the plunge to West Systems since it has always been such a reliable performer.

[Paul M]

What epoxies did you have a bad experience with? I might try system 3 silvertip.

[Brock Poling]

Sorry… I missed this comment earlier. I am pretty sure SilverTip is more of a finish / pore filling epoxy than an adhesive. YMMV.

[Paul M]

Home Depot epoxy is probably 2 part 1:1 resin and hardener. West system is 5:1.

I believe 5:1 is superior for strength for epoxy (the resin is the strong stuff, so you want more of that).

West has been around forever in the same formula so it’s very very commonly used which makes it the standard.

They make pumps for it to mix it in the proper ratio but the quantity ends up being more than you need for guitar stuff I mix it in 5 gram increments (5g resin 1g hardener) on a little druggy scale from Amazon. It pays to get the ratio as close to perfect as possible. Usually I do 10g.

You can use it for whatever you normally use glue for. Things to remember is that it isn’t reversible in any way like hide glue, it can make a huge mess, it’s somewhat toxic.

What I really like a lot is the West G-Flex gel which is a 2 part but almost as strong as regular west but slightly more flexible. I think that’s probably a good thing for guitars in that it will bend before failing. It’s easy and fast to mix. Definitely get the gel not the liquid.

I do use west for some finishing stuff and the Amine Blush part of west is an annoying issue. I will probably switch to system 3 because of that.