Urethane is the Goop of the Gods

Urethane is the Goop of the Gods. When God made Adam he used Urethane. How else would the clouds be able to stay in the sky? How else would the planets be able to float in the heavens? How else would the mountains stay connected to the earth? The obvious answer is a liberal use of urethane resin mixed one-to-one with pigments added as necessary. There are many different types of urethane, but I have been testing the urethane resin, the one the Gods use, to cast a few frame panels with a brick pattern for my screen house.

The idea here is that the urethane resin may bond to the aluminum frames better than the epoxy resin does. If this is true then I can use the urethane, with pigment, to make my brick frames and have a more water tight bond to the frame, thus saving me time and money from having to do additional work on applying veneers to the exterior of the frame house to protect and seal the shelter structure. I have also set up a few test with using the urethane as a glue sealant in between two clamped frames to see how well the bond is for construction of the structure. I haven't used epoxy for this because it takes too long to dry and I have avoided using polyester resin because it seems too brittle and smells too much.

My thinking is that I can mix a batch of urethane resin, 60-80 ounces at a time for doing molds of the brick pattern and at the same time use the extra and the splooge on the side walls of the mixing container to glue together a set of frames before I install them into a structure. I still may apply some sort of trim on top of the joints, but my hope is that the strength and small amount of flexibility of the urethane may be a more durable adhesive caulk than the store bought stuff.

My cost analysis suggest that the urethane is cheaper to use than the epoxy and potentially just as strong for the exterior shell once I add a decent amount of pigments into the mix, possibly even less flexible under heated conditions, which may prevent sag. I am estimated the cost of the urethane to be $10 per frame, not counting fiberglass cloth and pigment. The frames themselves cost approximately $12, so a combined estimate of $25 per frame is conservative, not counting labor. By using old frames I can save the $12, but there is some cost in cleaning them off, so I would round that down to $10 off, or $15 per frame using recycled frames.

The weight of one 20" X 24" frame is 2.5 lbs. I have done a weight comparison of epoxy filled frames and that adds approximately 2 more pounds. With a backing of plaster material to strengthen the epoxy a final weight of 8 lbs per frame is achieved. If the urethane does not sag as much as the epoxy then I may be able to get away without the plaster backing and that could put my finished weight at less than 5 lbs per frame. So to cover an 8 X 8 section with a frame wall the total weight would be around 30 frames which would weigh approximately 150 lbs. Without the resin and just by coating frames with a urethane I could build a structure of the same size weighing only 90-100 lbs with some finished framing and paint.

Assembly time of a structure could be as little as 2 hours - 4 hours depending on how much drilling would be required. I am sure this could be less with more than one person, but I am talking about casual building time which would allow time to drink coffee and admire the geometry while building. The total volume of a dismantled unit would be 48" X 24" X 20", not counting the wood trim, which means it could fit inside the trunk of a car, the back seat of a car or into two shopping carts in case you have an urban street lifestyle.