It was said here that acetone is way too fast to thin epoxy. I agree. I do not like acetone, because it evaporates too fast, causing problems like clouding. Instead, I use a thinner desighed for "nitrocellulosic products". It says on the label that it contains toluene, acetone and buthyl acetate. I use it both for thinning epoxy and to dissolve propionate. The propionate solution would produce sometimes the clouding effect, but this is really an exception, and it happens when the air has a lot of moisture in it.
Once I made a thick propionate solution using acetone as a solvent. I dipped the lure in it, and when it cured I saw it lost some colour(it was cloudy), but the clearcoat was a perfect matte finish. I dipped a lure having several coats of normal, thin propionate solution as sealer into this thick solution of propionate and it happened again. It lost colour but the matte finish was perfect.There was a question in the past about matte finish (don't remember who's question it was), that's why I mentioned it. Then I dipped both lures in the normal thin solution of propionate+thinner and the colour and the gloss were back again.
I do not like to use the epoxy as it is, I like to thin it. I usually make crankbaits using the printing foil technique, and I noticed that unthinned epoxy would not let the foil come through. But if I used thinned epoxy, the foil shines through the image of the fish. It is clearly the thinner which makes the difference.
It was also said by TU members that some types of epoxies have already some thinner in them (off the shelf, of course). I think that this would mean that both components have some thinner.
At least some types of epoxies can be used together with thinners. Just google "epoxy thinner" and see the results. Maybe someone could explain me if such thinners are used for 2 component epoxies or just for one component.
The picture below is meant to make the difference between a lure topcoated with unthinned epoxy (the one on the top) and a lure where thinned epoxy was used as a clearcoat (the smaller one). The foil was exactly the same for both lures.
I do not have 2 pcs. of the same lure to show you the difference, but I think the picture speaks for itself, even though when you look at the real thing the difference is higher than in the picture.
I admit that if you paint your lures you do not have to use your head with such problems.
