Hardener past shelf life, can I infuse again?

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Hardener past shelf life, can I infuse again?

Hardener past shelf life, can I infuse again?

Hardener past shelf life, can I infuse again?

Author	Message
moonpie	moonpie posted 5 Years Ago HOT Topic Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 34, Visits: 94	I just infused my latest part, nice vacuum, 50/50 slow and fast hardeners and it seemed to take a long time to infuse 1kg of resin, nearly 35 minutes. Left at 18-22 degrees for 6 days and when the bag came off, the infusion tubes and the very edges of the part are solid but the rest of the part is soft with thick gooey resin all over. The vacuum has obviously gone but I might be able to re-bag it if I can get rid of any tiny hardened slivers which might puncture the new bag. Is it worth me persevering with that? If I can draw a new vacuum is it worth me running a lot of fresh resin and hardened through or is that a waste of time given there's gooey resin everywhere or should I just leave it alone and try a heat lamp for a few days? Worse case for me is having to throw the carbon away and start again as it is a thick part. It's a standard easy composites epoxy uni-mould system mould with in2 infusion resin. Any thoughts welcome....thanks.
	Reply Like 3
Ken Olson	Ken Olson posted 5 Years Ago HOT Post Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 8, Visits: 41	Try using a small space heater and blow hot air into the bag to get it to go off. It might have been just too cool for it to cure properly?? I use an old previously used bag, drape it over the top of the infused part, put small clamps around the edge of the table and blow the heater in between the old bag and the new part. Looks like a balloon but then you are only heating the area inside the balloon and not the whole garage. It get's pretty cool where I am in the fall and winter and it works pretty well for me. If that doesn't do it in a couple hours then i'd probably call it a loss. I've had it happen before too. Not much you can do. You could never re-infuse it with sticky resin already on it.
	Reply Like 4
moonpie	moonpie posted 5 Years Ago HOT Post Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 34, Visits: 94	+x Ken Olson - 11/7/2019 10:01:07 PM Try using a small space heater and blow hot air into the bag to get it to go off. It might have been just too cool for it to cure properly?? I use an old previously used bag, drape it over the top of the infused part, put small clamps around the edge of the table and blow the heater in between the old bag and the new part. Looks like a balloon but then you are only heating the area inside the balloon and not the whole garage. It get's pretty cool where I am in the fall and winter and it works pretty well for me. If that doesn't do it in a couple hours then i'd probably call it a loss. I've had it happen before too. Not much you can do. You could never re-infuse it with sticky resin already on it. So the first infusion that didn't go off turned out to be beyond recovery. I cleaned it out, cleaned the mould and started again with new hardener. This time it was spot on and gave me the result I wanted. I also used another useful tip given to me by a friend for infusion at this time of year and bought an electric blanket to wrap the infused part in to aid curing. Even on slow hardener it was rock hard in 24 hours flat, so all's well that ends well and I have my seat base done! Picture attached ( the dull spots are PVA still to be washed off ;-))
	Reply Like 4
Lester Populaire	L Lester Populaire posted 5 Years Ago HOT Post Details
L Group: Forum Members Posts: 311, Visits: 13K	+x moonpie - 12/16/2019 4:59:57 PM +x Ken Olson - 11/7/2019 10:01:07 PM Try using a small space heater and blow hot air into the bag to get it to go off. It might have been just too cool for it to cure properly?? I use an old previously used bag, drape it over the top of the infused part, put small clamps around the edge of the table and blow the heater in between the old bag and the new part. Looks like a balloon but then you are only heating the area inside the balloon and not the whole garage. It get's pretty cool where I am in the fall and winter and it works pretty well for me. If that doesn't do it in a couple hours then i'd probably call it a loss. I've had it happen before too. Not much you can do. You could never re-infuse it with sticky resin already on it. So the first infusion that didn't go off turned out to be beyond recovery. I cleaned it out, cleaned the mould and started again with new hardener. This time it was spot on and gave me the result I wanted. I also used another useful tip given to me by a friend for infusion at this time of year and bought an electric blanket to wrap the infused part in to aid curing. Even on slow hardener it was rock hard in 24 hours flat, so all's well that ends well and I have my seat base done! Picture attached ( the dull spots are PVA still to be washed off ;-)) That part is awfully close to the exhaust... did you check if the temperatures are within the glass transition temperature of the resin?
	Reply Like 2

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