I was curious if there were any railroad museums, organizations or anyone else that is engaged in wooden railcar preservation or restoration that has used products by ABATRON? They make LIQUIDWOOD which is a epoxy liquid that can make rotten wood hard again. They also make WOODEPOX which is a 2 part adhesive wood puty which can be be used to replace or fill missing wood. Does anyone have any success / failure stories about the use of this product? The WOODEPOX reminds me as a BONDO for wood. I was also wondering if anyone has used these products on exterior siding and how good the finish (paint/primmer) adhered to this product and what the longevity was?

We have used Abatron with GREAT SUCCESS to stabilize and fill rotten areas of interior framing beams, small deterioratated sections of side sills, and even around some window framing.

Highly, highly recommended!!! Expensive (we call it Liquid Gold) but very easy to work with.

Matt Bumgarner
Alexander Chapter-NRHS

I have used a lot of it in both structures and rolling stock repairs. You may find an article in the RyPN archives about an ABATRON repair to a streetcar frame from about 5 years ago if you look. Like all finishing jobs, surface prep and correct application are critical to its longevity.

I glued the tower window frames and sash back together with it on the Salisbury, NC depot about 25 years ago, just a couple weeks before a hurricane blew through. Trees down everywhere, but the windows stayed just where I left them fine.

I wouldn't use it for any job that can be done easliy by cutting out and piecing in a dutchman, just for economic reasons, but for tricky joinery or hard to replicate pieces it is an excellent product.

dave

When McKinney Avenue was just starting to rehab the first 2 cars ( a Birney and a W-2), The end beams at the front of the Birney, that held the bumper, had enlarged holes and some had gaps that were 2 inches wide and 4 inches long in the front end. We used the Liquid Epox and also Wood Epox, at separate times and locations. In the repairs to the front 4x6 wood, the liquid seeped down one beam in a crack that ran diagonally under the car. We were not aware of this until we later had the car on the pit and discovered the result. The wood was solid all the way.

It is now over 20 years and there has been no more rot or damage. We used no special preparation before painting as the Abatron products will accept stain, paint, screws, tapping and many other attachments. Expensive? Well, it would have been more costly to replace the 4 beams at each end than what it cost for Abatron.

I have used it for over 25 years on houses as well as street cars. It is great.

There is sort of a joke here at Orange Empire that one of the 3-foot gauge gons is more Abatron that wood!

I have used both just the LIQUIDWOOD for a wood hardner and the WOODEPOX (which I usually soften with 50/50 A/B
LIQUIDWOOD to make it more workable) with great success.

One of the old guys here taught me that regular old BONDO works great as a wood surface filler. Just spread it on. Bondo hardens quickly. Abatron takes about 24-hours.

I suspect that the Abatron liquid filler is just a slow drying epoxy. This gives it time to soak through the wood fibers. I have used it on rotted floors where it would be near impossible to repair otherwise. If you go to a paint store you can find Bondo made for house repairs. This also is slow drying and so gives you more working time. One of the tricks with bondo is to repair the substrate first then use a good quality primer then Bondo then primer over the Bondo. I have also used the two part Abatron wood filler but found, im my application, that it was somewhat better than Bondo. There really is nothing better than cutting out the bad wood and slipping in a dutchman. Sometimes this is more work but as the cliche goes, "you get what you pay for".

The Society for the Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources uses both Abatron and West System epoxies regularly...

They are great for dealing with dry rot in wooden car framing. They are less effective (as is bondo) for exterior siding.

We do believe that when using epoxy that you need to be careful not to lock mortise and tendon joints. For example, when consolidating a vertical post, or mortise pocket, we are likely to disassemble and treat each part separately, alternately, we insert wax paper or a similar membrane to make sure the parts are not glued together. The exception is splicing car sills or posts. MCB had standards for splicing car sills, we follow their rules, but bed the joint in epoxy.

Short answer, epoxies are a great restoration tool, but not a cure all.

Randy

Yes, Abatron is one of four products in WRM's epoxy arsenal. Excuse me, five. All of these materials have the property that they will cure fully even if not exposed to air. Being all epoxies they are generally compatible with each other.

#1 - Git Rot. You soak it into rotted wood, it penetrates, hardens and you have strong material again. It mixes to the consistency of water. Abatron's "LiquidWood" product appears to be pretty much the same thing, though WRM does not use it. Cost of either: about $40/qt.

#2. Awlgrip 545 Epoxy Primer. It is the best wood primer on earth. It can be easily, safely painted with brush and roller, just keep it off your skin. On bare wood, reduce it an extra 30-40% to the consistency of water, and it will soak and penetrate into the wood fibers. Where you see it "go dry" from soaking in, immediately brush on more and repeat as needed. This only works very shallow, maybe 1/16" at best, it's no substitute for GitRot/LiquidWood. Cost $80/gal.

#3. Awl Fair. This is a fairing compound, "bondo for wood", for filling, not for strength. Easy to sand. The two parts are pre-loaded with filler materials, so you get peanut butter consistency whether you want it or not. It's a fair bit of work to get the proportion right and get the parts mixed together evenly; if you don't it can fail. Cost $25/qt in gallons.

#4. Abatron WoodEpox. This is a filling/gluing material with a lot more strength than AwlFair. Again with the filler material pre-added, so you get Play-Doh consistency. Cost $35/qt.

#5. West System 105. This is a universal "dial-a-product" epoxy system you mix to your application. Pumps make the proportions a sure thing. It mixes to the consistency of pancake syrup, so very easy to mix evenly. Once mixed, you blend an infinite variety of filler materials to optimize for whatever characteristics you want - consistency, strength, gluing power, sandability. These mixes can replace WoodEpox and Awlfair. Cost before adding fillers: $90/gal, 70 cents/oz, 56 cents a squirt from the mini-pumps.

On bare surface, you MUST prime/seal/bond before using fillers like WoodEpox. That is why I mentioned Alwgrip 545. You can also prime with GitRot/LiquidWood/etc. but it's more expensive. In a pinch you could maybe use West System straight, but it won't penetrate as well. I have a chip of filler with topcoat paint on one side, and brown dust on the other. It was thoughtlessly troweled onto an unprepared surface, and it bonded to the outer layer of dust/dirt/dryrot. And fell off within months. I keep it as an example of why to seal/prime.

Most topcoats will work on epoxy, I haven't yet found one that won't. However if you did filling/fairing I recommend a 2-part epoxy primer to seal the work area. That way you can layer on some more filler (compatible) if the primer reveals high/low areas.

These are the kinds of posts that keep me coming back here. Never heard of either of these products before. Fascinating.

With regards to the rehabilitation of BCER 1225 (A 1912 St. Louis Car. Co. built interurban) we found, after removing the side plate, wood rot on the some of the wood. We had heard about Abatron, but found there was not a distributor in the Greater Vancouver area. As such we were pointed towards a product out of Seattle called "End Rot" and "Sculpwood" sold by a local company. We found it was useful for our purpose.

"Sculpwood Moldable Epoxy Putty
SculpWood is the epoxy putty component of The EndRot System. SculpWood is a 2-component, solvent free, kneadable epoxy resin putty. It is moldable, carvable, lightweight, strong, and exhibits excellent adhesion to a variety of substrates. It is easily sanded and will accept paint, screws and nails. It is most commonly used in conjunction with System Three RotFix, a low viscosity wood sealer and consolidant. For more details about the EndRot System see EndRot.

Recommended Uses:
Use SculpWood for replacing missing sections of windowsills, frames and furniture or for adding new sections to existing structures.

It sounds like they are the equivalent product pair to "LiquidWood / WoodEpox" from Abatron.

Yes, sourcing can be a devil. There are a lot of products that do similar things, but finding any one by name brand can be a real devil. West System is available all over the place. GitRot, less so. TAP Plastics is a consumer-facing retail emporium with such a variety of plastics, epoxies etc. that you could build a composite airplane, all house brands and only on the west coast. Awlgrip distributors are where there's big marina business (not Wyoming) but not every such place (not Chicago!??) So it is admittedly touch and go. Fortunately some of these products are targeted at house restoration, whereas others are targeted at the marine market.

I've always ordered ABATRON from ABATRON directly.

dave

Ditto. Here is their web site:

http://www.abatron.com/

West system seems to be a bit more difficult, but I keep getting e-mails from a marine supply distributor who ships nationwide and often feature West System epoxy products. They also seem to carry Git Rot and Awl Grip paints:

http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/us ... bout_us.do

West System should be easy to get, as it's much wider distributed than the other products, to sectors beyond marine. There are 4 retailers in Denver alone. Hence they are probably less responsive to direct requests. Find your local West dealer here. http://www.westsystem.com/ss/where-to-buy/

Jamestown Distributors is extremely aggressive with Internet marketing, and appears in the top 5 of search results for most marine products. Pricewise they're in the midrange... a good marine distributor will be cheaper, a typical marine retail store will be more expensive. Don't forget shipping. And waiting.

Abatron is the ACE hardware screwdriver in a Snap-On world. Go with WEST systems, and buy their textbook while you're at it. It's a required, basic text in any community college that has a marine trades track.