To reduce the divorce risk epoxy resin is much less offensive than polyester as your kayaks would have been, but also far more expensive.Originally Posted by fender3x
I've discussed this a lot on a bass guitar forum, where lighter weight cabinets is a significant point of interest, and I have an amateur boat building background and some experience with the materials. The thing is to add stiffness with styrofoam, pvc foam or whatever you need an inner skin. Whilst you can go very lightweight with excellent strength with plastic/foam/plastic sandwich construction, the problem you run into is puncture resistance.
If you don't want to be repairing a cabinet or case every other week then the outer skin requires a certain minimum strength. And by the time you've given it that, plus the foam and an inner skin of adequate strength, then you are up to much the same sort of weight as conventional plywood anyway. So for an instrument case moulded ABS with non structural foam inside is pretty much optimal. And for we homebuilders I fear the traditional fabric covered ply is still as good an option as any. A layer of fibre on the inside of the ply would add more puncture resistance than the same weight of ply, but at greater cost.
If money were no object then a kevlar case would have excellent properties and a superficial resemblance to tweed, but boy would it cost...
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