epoxy areas not "setting up"

I have some areas on the interior of my MC16.5 that are still sticky after a week of dry time....its an odd thing, its only in a couple spots around the hanging knees. and slick ideas on how to cure this.   

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RE: epoxy areas not "setting up"

It might be that you did not mix the epoxy completely. I learned that lesson the hard way and had to remove partially cured epoxy from the deck of my MC16.

RE: epoxy areas not "setting up"

so the answer is: dig out as much of the soft areas and re-coat? that seems reasonable.

RE: epoxy areas not "setting up"

same thing happened to me, I used lacquer thinner and scotch brite pads and a lot of scrubing, good luck

RE: epoxy areas not "setting up"

In my fiberglassing days we would Cure a sticky pour by putting a "hot" batch on the sticky resin.  The extra catalyst in the hot mix would cure the sticky uncured resin.  Is this possible to do in epoxy?

RE: epoxy areas not "setting up"

Thor,

Not really. Polyester resins want to get hard, they're just really slow about it until you add the catalyst. Epoxy resins can't turn solid without the hardener since part of their molecular structure is missing until the hardener is added.

If you paint the sticky spot with hardener, the top could crosslink and harden, but the inside part would stay sticky. It'd be like what the polar bear said about the igloo - "Yum, crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside".

t-box,

If it's not too late you might want to try just warming the sticky areas before going to all the trouble of scraping them out, just in case the problem is a localized temperature issue. Just put an incandescent bulb, like a shop light, near the patch for a day. If that doesn't fix it you can always dig it out.

Laszlo 

RE: epoxy areas not "setting up"

I am having the same problem this morning, it hasn't been a long time (12 hours) but the epoxy should be hard by now. I laid the bottom galss on my Skerry and everything was hard after 5 hours then didi the second coat, this time using a foam roller and that coat is still not hard, just a hard honey kind of consistency. One thing I didn't do was to clean the hull with alcool, but since I never used alcool when plugging holes without problems I didn't see this as a big deal. I checked the roller to see if it was hard and it is, the left over epoxy is also hard in the container. I am increasing the heat in the shed to promote curing, but for now it is a bit of a mystery.

 

Michel 

RE: epoxy areas not "setting up"

That sounds like a temperature problem. If the roller and container are hard, your mix was correct. Remember that the Skerry bottom has a lot of surface are to radiate the heat from the exothermic raction, so it won't get anywhere near as hot as the epoxy in the container.

Warming things up is exactly the right thing to do.

Laszlo

 

RE: epoxy areas not "setting up"

well i removed the sticky areas...and recoated. and now it looks like a million bucks. i think it may have been to cold in my shop. so i would agree it was a temp issue.

RE: epoxy areas not "setting up"

Is there a "deadline" for the curing process to happen because in my case after 36 hours at 80 degrees the coat on the hull is still not hard but as now assume a wax like texture. It is not as sticky as yesturday but it is taking ages. I tried to remove a small area using alcool, but it is not coming out easily. Will the hardening process continue or am I doomed to stripped the hull? I am using epiglass product by Interlux. I do believe temperature was the issue in this case too but since not much is happening now I am affraid its as hard as it will get. 

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