I'm no professional boatbuilder, but I've been helping out friends and family with DIY glassfiber boat repairs and improvements. So yes, I have experience of bo

I'm no professional boatbuilder, but I've been helping out friends and family with DIY glassfiber boat repairs and improvements. So yes, I have experience of both polyester resin and epoxy. They have their own issues, as discussed in this thread. Epoxy is highly allergenic (or whatever the word is), so you should be pretty careful about using nitrile gloves or similar when working with it. Personally I don't find the smell particularly bad, and it's not very strong, at least compared to polyester resin. Polyester, yes it smells bad, and as I mentioned in my parent comment that's styrene vapors you're inhaling, which is a known carcinogen. If I were to do some bigger job with polyester, I'd definitely want some pretty hefty breathing filter. But for the occasional one-off thing, particularly if you can do it outdoors, meh..