whatiscpes

CPES (Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer) is a two-component product, made from largely the same oils and resins as are in wood, that is used to impregnate wood and restore useful properties to deteriorated wood. This does not mean totally rotten crud..... if you can pick it off with your bare fingers, best to do so.

Fungi eats into wood farther than you can see. The proof is in the adjacent photo. The far left is not impregnated and the right has been impregnated with CPES dyed blue so you can see how the rot has extented far beyond what can be seen with the naked eye on the untreated glue-lamination.

An aged piece of mahogany may have only seventy percent of the density of new material. Fifty years of fungal and bacterial attack have eaten away much of the internal structure of the wood, but it still feels sound and a fifty-year old Chris-Craft boat is still holding toether, even though the wood may be that far gone, or worse.

CPES contains solvents which dissolve the saps and oils in wood, as well as the excess moisture that one finds in slightly deteriorated wood. It holds the water and the oils and the resin system mutually in solution, and impregnates selectively only the open porosity of wood and the deteriorated regions. It glues the remaining fibers back together , and restores some useful strength to the wood, without changing the natural flexibility of the wood. It does not put a rock in the wood, as those unspeakable rock-hard epoxy products do.

Take a look at (www.woodrestoration.com) which is a scientific study of this subject, and proves everything I said with time-lapse photographs and experimental measurements of flexibility and strength of impregnated wood.

It makes enamel or latex paint and especially varnish stick better, because it glues them down with epoxy glue that is about as flexible as the wood itself. After the initial application of CPES one waits 12 hours for the solvents to evaporate. The next day we apply our top coat over an uncured two part epoxy. The topcoat (paint,varnish or stain) now dries at the same time as the epoxy. This results in a topcoat that is bonded to the fibers that are inside the wood itself!!!

The two pictures on the right show CPES working it's way via capiliary action in the rotted areas of the wood. The extremely long pot life of CPES allows for deep penetration.