Why WEST SYSTEM Epoxies?
WEST SYSTEM Epoxies have been used successfully in boat construction and repair since 1969. Developed by our in-house chemists, our epoxy formulations are proprietary, structural and marine grade. These epoxies set the standard for epoxy quality in the marine industry and beyond.
Epoxy brands vary widely in their formulations, quality of raw materials, and suitability for marine environments. It’s easy to market an off-the-shelf industrial epoxy as a marine epoxy or formulate an epoxy with one or two favorable characteristics while sacrificing overall performance. It’s much more difficult balancing all of the physical and mechanical properties necessary for a versatile, high-quality marine grade epoxy. This is why Gougeon Brothers, Inc., maintains highly qualified in-house chemists, testing facilities, and formulation equipment. WEST SYSTEM Epoxies have always been developed, formulated, and manufactured in our Bay City, Michigan plant by epoxy users who are enthusiastic about epoxy quality and ease of use.
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Epoxies Formulated for Performance
Defining an epoxy’s performance criteria and designing a formula to meet those criteria require good chemistry, rigorous test programs, skillful shop work, and direct experience with high-performance boats and other composite structures. We scientifically test our epoxy resin and hardener formulas, ingredients, and combinations to compare fatigue strength, compression strength, glass transition temperature, and peak exotherm. Additionally, our materials testing lab evaluates qualified samples for hardness, tensile strength, tensile elongation, tensile modulus, flexural strength, flexural modulus, heat deflection temperature, impact resistance, and moisture exclusion effectiveness. But we don’t stop there: we’re an employee-owned company and our people are heavily involved in competitive sailing, powerboating, building composites and using our epoxies at home. Everything we find out in the lab is followed up by real-world experiences with epoxy.
Manufactured by Gougeon Brothers, Inc., an ISO 9001:2008 registered company, WEST SYSTEM Products meet the highest quality standards for reliability, consistency, and customer accountability. We maintain a full-time staff of Technical Advisors to help our customers when questions arise about their projects.
Our manufacturing plant has always been located in Bay City, Michigan. WEST SYSTEM Epoxy products are available at fine marine chandleries and hardware stores worldwide.
Learn more about uses of WEST SYSTEM Epoxies in Epoxyworks magazine.