Why hasn't my sanded (epoxied) panel rusted yet?

GeoffW65

Promoted Users
Ok, so this is just a curious question.

I have had a chevelle in SPI epoxy for a while now, probably 9 months. I have been distracted by other projects and life in general, and have noticed something that I'm curious about from ya'll as the experts...

I block sanded some of the epoxied areas on one of the quarters just to see how flat things would look and hit metal. I did stop (didn't grind into the metal). I also did not re-coat and then ended up in my above-mentioned distraction. I'm a bit surprised that after 9 months in a non-air conditioned garage in South Carolina there isn't a hint of rust on those spots.

To be clear: I'm not hoping for rust.

I'm just curious about this and wonder if I've been saved from my laziness on this one. Does the epoxy remain as a film even though it "looks" like I've sanded to metal?
 
I'm willing to bet that if you sanded a little metal spot, you'd see it brighten up a bit. There's no doubt some oxidation there, but somehow your environment is clean and dry enough to prevent much from happening. I'm guessing you don't live near the ocean, otherwise your garage has got some magic in it!

So no, there is nothing left of the epoxy once you sand it off.
 
I've noticed the same here in Wisconsin. Humidity gets pretty high in the summer months here as well. It seems when you have a lot of exposed metal there's always some small areas that will visibly rust. For me when when it's only small sand throughs I rarely ever see any. Never left anything set for 9 months though.

I believe Crash is correct about there still being some oxidation in those areas.
 
Yeah, thanks. So I may not be lucky, I may just be losing eyesight. My shop is pretty dry overall so I am not too surprised. Appreciate the responses.
 
Same thing here in north Texas. Since I didn’t keep sanding, I figured there was just enough epoxy in the pours of the metal to protect it.
 
Not too unusual. I have a bin of metal parts that were media blasted 2 years ago and have been bare metal since in my garage. Not a spec of rust, not even surface rust.
 
I have bare blasted parts or bodies in my shop too that have been sitting like that for years. They don't really rust much.

That being said, I have had a door that I block sanded epoxy on. It had a number of spots that sanded real thin and that door looked like a dairy cow once all those spots start to rust through the thin mil of what epoxy was left.
 
Back
Top