I am not really satisfied with the CP I've used on my last rod: SEYMO

I have noticed a real lack of complete penetration...and I am almost sure that some finish has got underneath the thread...

As this is the only CP I have right now I was thinking about thinning it but I read several times that CP should not be thinned except on the instructions of the manufacturers.... as I have no instruction here from SEYMO I was wondering if anybody would be kind enough to give me a solution.....
What should I use to thin it and how much.....

thanks

Frantz

What is Seymo?

TRY SEARCH = "SEYMO THIN"
[Mssg Body + Subject ] ALL DATES

Billy V. - I think SEYMO is a brand sold over in the UK / British Isles.
-Cliff Hall+++

Seymo is the british brand name for flex coat exactly the same stuff just different name on the label
hope this is useful ?????
Allen

Billy, Cliff,

I have already searched on the forum before I posted this message but nothing is said about Seymo CP, I saw some words about Seymo finish but nothing else.

Seymo is one of the finish we use here in Europe, it's like "your" flex coat, but I thought it would also be known in the US....

All I am looking for is a secure way to thin my CP so as to make it penetrate better in the threads............ heeeeeelllllllpppppppppp


Frantz

frantz try a search for flex coat thinning its identical stuff

thanks Allen

Frantz,

I thin my CP as much as is necessary for it to penetrate the thread. If it's too thick to penetrate the thread you're not preserving anything. The label of Gudebrod CP, which is what I am using now, says "thin with alcohol, clean up with water".

Jim

FRANTZ -In your SEARCH, when the Author RALPH O'QUINN turns up, be sure to read his Replies in your research. ... ROQ very recently made another great commentary on thinning CP or Thread Finish (TF).

In a nutshell, if I recall the jist and consensus of the advice:
IF you insist on thinning CP (or TF), use ACETONE or De-Natured Alcohol (D-NA, which is 91% Ethanol). Do NOT use 70% IsoPropyl Alcohol (IPA) - it has too much water in it. Avoid diluting your CP or TF moe than 10%. I think FlexCoat's website says to limit the dilution to 15%. DOUBLE-CHECK those facts & figures before you stake your work on my memory. I can't search it out now, and the research work will do your thought process good. -Cliff Hall+++

P.S. - Thanks, Allen for your enlightenment. -Cliff+++

I have been using water to thin the flexcoat CP. The best I can tell is it is PVA (poly vinyl acatate) based. Very simular to Elmers Glue, which can be cut with water. I have done this on the few rod i have build and had no problems.

I thought PVA was poly vinyl alcohol. I thought many of the water base CP's were poly ureathane dispersions with surfactants except for the Gudebrod witch is a mixture of ureathane and PVA. Ralph O'Quinn posted something a week or so ago as to exactly what it was and why we have to thin it with alcohol. (No quality control) For penetration I like the American Tackle dispersion. For looks I like the Gudebrod. It sits up on top of the thread better. I use them in combination.

For what ever it is worth.

Ed

I may be off here but I believe the point of CP is to seal the thread, in which case I would think that thinning it with water would just result in adding more non sealing liquid to the thread and thinning/diluting the solids that are needed to seal it and kind of defeating the purpose. I would much prefer a layer of CP over the thread or encapsulating it, thereby preventing penetration of the finish, than to have a thinned mixture that penetrates the thread but not necessarily doing a good job of sealing it.

Just an uneducated opinion. Feel free to jump in


Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!

I guess I could have been a bit clearer. I two coat the thread with CP. The first coat I will thin only if needed. Sometimes it seems that the CP does get a bit on the thick side. I do prefer it to soak in a little and saturate the thread. The second coat is applied right out of the container. I am one expert by no means but I find this works well for me.

Thank you very much guys, all your advices and information will help me for sure.

regards

Frantz

Gentleman - There will always be success stories from people who beat the odds for failure when altering the formulations of quasi-stable dispersions like a water-compatible Color Preserver. ... That's fine, if it works for you, great. Don't let me tell you it won't work. But why a rod-builder would go around and tell other people "it worked for me" and not give any specific directions or proportions is a mystery to me.

Successful dilution and application of CP or TF can depend a lot on the diluent, the proportions and the technique for adding & mixing the diluent. Adding just a few DROPS of diluent may be all that is necessary.

Since the choice of the diluent is the most critical, it is generally best to stick to ACETONE or De-Natured Alcohol. Drug-Store or Hardware-store or Feed-Store "Pure Acetone" is nearly 100% Acetone and has no water in it for our rod-building purposes. De-Natured Alcohol is 91% Ethanol, 5% Methanol and 4% Water. Isopropyl Alcohol (IPA) is usually 70% IPA and 30% Water. That's too much water. In some regions, IPA is available as 91% IPA (9% Water), making it a 3rd choice.

The ONLY reason to dilute the CP or the TF is to reduce viscosity and improve the "wetting" properties of the suspension / dispersion. ACETONE or ETHANOL are much better at lowering viscosity and increasing wetting (improving thread penetration) than water is, believe it or not. As a chemist, that's just an indisputable fact, however ironic it sounds that a ketone or an alcohol is a better wetting agent than water itself. Epoxies should NEVER be diluted with water; 1-2 drops of acetone may be all that is needed.

The OTHER reason you want to use Acetone or Ethanol to thin CP and NOT WATER is because they are ORGANIC SOLVENTS. They are better than WATER at keeping the ACRYLIC component of the Color Preserver in solution. The water makes the acrylics precipitate, turning into little aggregating clumps the size of sand particles. The acetone or ethanol helps keep the acrylics' particle size down in the fine powder range where it can PENETRATE INTO your rod thread when you apply it. If your dilution doesn't work well, it may look like a clear or turbid gel (snot) on top of your thread.

And finally, Acetone and Ethanol evaporate more rapidly then Water. IMO, the only reason that a CP seller suggests the use of water to thin their CP is because Water is conveniently available to 99.9% of all rod-builders, and / or because they are not as worried about it causing an application failure as they should be. IMO.

As a bench-top chemist I can tell you that many CP dispersions, like most brands of CP, have a liquid vehicle that have more than two solvents in them. And when you start adding more of one solvent or adding a new solvent, you can create an unstable situation. You may not become aware of just how unstable it is until it starts drying on your thread. Well, not really drying, but instead turning into a gelatinous goopy mess that you thought would dry. Some day. Now you are flocked. ... If that's a risk you enjoy taking, it's your boat, rock it all you want.

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of reading up on this subject of "Thinning." ESPECIALLY READ this first citation and RALPH O'QUINN's (and my) comments therein. In case you did not know, he is a chemist and the developer of the U-40 TRONDAK Product Line (LS-Supreme, PermaGloss, Rod-Bond, CP, etc).

Like I said, in very specific applications, under narrow ranges of dilution, and with a particular brand of CP, thinning with acetone or ethanol can work, when needed. Just be aware that too large a deviation from your original recipe for dilution may cause more of a surprise than you thought possible.

When you push the envelope in a multi-component solvent system, and you cause: a precipitation of the carried solids; or a two-phase segregation of the solvents components; or the formation of a gel; it is usually IRREVERSIBLE (at least as far as rod-building situations will allow). ... It has been rendered useless as a CP.

If you don't care what it looks like, wipe it off. Hit it with a hair dryer or low-heat gun until bone dry. Let it cool off for half an hour, and apply your thread finish. ... Or slice it!

Alright, a word to the wise is sufficient.
-Cliff Hall+++, Gainesville, FL-USA*****

Thinning Gudebrod CP 01-14-06 [www.rodbuilding.org]
Fellows, THIS is perhaps the best single "Post & Replies" written in the last 18 months on THINNING CP (or TF). If you plan on thinning CP or TF, PLEASE consider its advice. Use a quality CP product that works for you without doctoring, for your vivid color schemes on guides or butt wraps / weaves.

Otherwise, just take Lou Reyna's advice (pick a fool-proof color scheme, like black-on-black, or use NCP thread) or take Randy Putter's advice (pick an NCP or HT-Metallic thread) and TOTALLY ELIMINATE the need to use Color Preserver in the first place...!!!...Period. -Cliff Hall+++

Thinning Gudebrod CP Ed Grella 01-14-06 [www.rodbuilding.org]
Hello, On the bottle, the directions state "thin with alcohol" What type of alcohol? Thanks, Ed
THIS Thread with ROQ is really the last word on “thinning theory” from a solvent-chemistry view.

Re: alcohol oops! Cliff Hall 01-09-06 12:00 [www.rodbuilding.org]
"FYI: When trying to decide how quickly an alcohol will dry off (evaporate), take a look at the label of the original bottle and see how much WATER is in that alcohol." ... ETC, etc, etc. -Cliff Hall+++

Finally, let me add that the first coat of Color Preserver is the most important. THAT is the penetrating coat that should deliver as much of a concentrated load of the CP solids / acrylics into the thread as possible. This 1st coat of CP should lock-out the thread finish. In fact, if done correctly, the 1st coat of CP should also lock out a 2nd coat of CP. A 2nd coat of CP should complete the saturation process of the threads. But any additional coats should be unnecessary, if not useless or even harmful. If so many coats of CP are used that the thread texture becomes too smooth, the (epoxy) thread finish may not adhere well to the thread. When the rod is flexed and been put to use, a layer separation can occur between the thread and epoxy, forming a vapor pocket, and a silvery or irridescent reflective sheen will appear that won't go away. Been there, done that - don't you, ... -Cliff Hall+++

P.S. - The more I think about it, the more I think I may get around to trying the polyurethane varnishes that have been recommended here at RBO as being suitable as a CP. Since they are not water-miscible, there is (should be) no worry about turning "milky" from water infiltration thru the inevitable cracks in the epoxy at the heels of the line guides, as I had once on my favorite surf rod (at the folding butt guide). -CMH+++

Does anybody still use an a white underpaint for yellow underwraps? Which brand of paint seems compatible with your CP acrylics or polyurethane and epoxy finish?

I wrote Flex Coat and inquired what the prefered thinning medium was. The questiing was water or acetone or alcohol. This is the responce from Flex Coat.

Yes, water is the thing to use. We recommend thinning 50% Flex Coat Color Preserver and 50% Water for a good saturating solution. Apply two coats 50/50% and one coat full strength.

Not all water is created equal and if you make up a large bottle of thinned 50/50% that you want to last for a long time we recommend using distilled water.

Flex Coat Questions and Product Support

After reading what Cliff wrote ,i remember the last time i used flex coat cp it seemed very thick so i thinned by 1/3 with water and it became granular,so i thinned it more and it was worse.I thought it was a bad batch but now i realize it was the water.Iknow flex coat recommends water,next time i'll try acetone or denatured alcohol,thanks for info.

To Will Whitaker: First of all, THANK YOU for sharing with everyone the recommendation that FlexCoat gave you for thinning their Color Preserver (FC-CP), posted above.

FlexCoat Customer Service says: "Not all water is created equal ..."
And I say, "Not all advice is created equal, either."

If FlexCoat recommends "thinning 50% Flex Coat Color Preserver and 50% Water", and you are comfortable with that, go for it. ... It's a pretty simple experiment. All you risk is your time, some thread on a scrap blank, ... or your next rod project, ... Did FlexCoat say their advice was TESTED, or was that just their educated guess?

I would not be comfortable with that advice of 50% dilution of FC-CP with water, for all the reasons discussed in my comments above and in my references. ... And I think I can safely suggest that neither would Ralph O'Quinn, and ROQ knows much more about these CP formulations than I do.

Perhaps another brand of CP would not tolerate that much dilution with ANY solvent, never mind water. ... There must be at least 10 brands of CP, and to use 3 solvents (DMK, EtOH, H2O) in 3 dilutions (10, 25, 50%) in triplicate. Plus one triplicate set of Controls (0% Dilution). That's 30 test-tubes (~$35 work-up) plus 30 thread wraps (~$50) on 3 scrap blank sections ($15), plus a $20 hassle factor. Oh, and later we cover with FC-TF Epoxy: Add $30. (And that's the friendly price.) That's ~$150 testing price for each brand of CP. A total of ~$1,500 for 10 brands of CP, ... Any takers? ...

I have not tried the dilution proportions of FC-CP as recommended by FlexCoat, as reported by Will Whitaker <[email protected]>, above. And I do not intend to. ... I am not here to do that grunt work for your application testing. I am here to discuss the principles involved in such experiments. You can do whatever you like with that counsel.

You are free, of course, to determine your own recipe for thinning a particular brand of CP. You can pick your own solvent and your own proportions for dilution, based on whatever reference, intuition or trial you prefer. That's how we learn. We test an idea, in as simple or as elaborate a way as it takes to get a reliable answer.

Whoever does thin their FlexCoat Color Preserver, perhaps they can report the recipe they use - the solvent used, and the proportions of solvent used for that brand of CP. ...

Will, when you have tried the 50% dilution with water that FlexCoat recommended, let us know how it turned out overall. Just make sure you also include a scrap trial that is NOT diluted at all. THAT is your CONTROL SAMPLE - 0% Dilution. Let's see if thinning improved things over the raw product. If you don't do a side by side comparison, then the whole experiment is awash in subjectivity, ... which brings me back to my original premise ...

You take somebody else's advice, ... On this one, I'll take mine & ROQ's.
>) - Good Luck, ... -Cliff Hall+++, Gainesville, FL-USA*****