The other day, I applied some flex coat on the upper half of a rod I had wrapped. Mixed the finish in a smallish batch from the provided syringes, for about 5 minutes or so, and applied while the rod was turning. The next day, the finish was still sort of tacky and dull, i hear this is called blushing?

I went ahead and finished the bottom half, mixing and applying the finish in the same fashion, and it turned out great? The temp in the house was between 65-70*F, and I was giving it a full 24 hours to set up.

Unless there's something I did obviously wrong, this worries me, should I choose to build an expensive blank and have it all go wrong at the last minute. Are there any other products out there that are any easier to get desired results? LS supreme?

No, that's not blushing. Sounds like the "smallish batch" has been your undoing. Always mix at least 3ccs of each part. Failure to do so means that being off by just one drop can mean a large enough percentage difference that your finish won't set and cure properly.

If anything had been wrong with the finish, both batches would have gone wrong. Most likely, you got a better mix ratio on the second batch that you used on the bottom half.

Flex Coat is a proven finish and the most popular in the world. It works like all the others though, in that you have to measure and mix it properly in order to get the desired results.

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Mix up another batch correctly, and go over the tacky guiides with a thin coat, it will cure up the sticky stuff underneathe. Plus sometimes being off of a 50/50 by VOLUME batch slightly means; it may take up to 3 days to cure; off too much, it won't cure at all even after three days. The tackyness after 24 hours means you most likly used too much hardner. Ppl think adding more hardner is the remedy when too much is already the problem, but this is not to say... short the hardner either, You want a 50/50 by VOLUME mix so the epoxy preforms properly and has all its intended elasticity. I managed to find out what each component weighs in a 50/50 by VOLUME mix and weigh the stuff so it comes out right everytime even with a smallish batch, the bigger 3cc, 6cc total batches are used to negate any error in syringe measuring, with the batches being large enough that being off a little won't effect a positive outcome

Kyle,
Our ThreadMaster finish offers a 10% margin for error in mixing and measuring. I have several builders that are mixing up 1cc at a time using syringes w/o a problem. I am not reccomending mixing batches less than 3cc, just that I know a lot of my clients are doing this w/o a problem.


Andy Dear
Lamar Fishing

Thanks for the help, guys. Guess trying to be a little thrifty when mixing my finish wasn't any help in the long run. I was only mixing up between 0.5 and 1.5cc of each part.

One thing you might want to watch out for is when you pick up the epoxy in the syringe to puge ALL the air bubbles and pockets out.Bring the epoxy past your epoxy past the mark you need and inject the excess back into the bottle..Warm epoxy makes the air pocket and bubbles eaier to get out..I am far from any expert but(crossing my fingers)I use flex coat and have not had a bit of a problem,temp when I did my baitcaster last week was at 63 degrees and she was dry to the touch in 6 hours..Andy,really am gonna try the new light Threadmaster is it out yet and are you gonna make it available through more dealers.Ray

Kyle Olsen Wrote:
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> Thanks for the help, guys. Guess trying to be a
> little thrifty when mixing my finish wasn't any
> help in the long run. I was only mixing up
> between 0.5 and 1.5cc of each part.


Trying to be thrifty on an expensive blank is counter productive.To save fifty cents worth of finish and have to do it over just cost you a dollar.Think of the extra as an insurance policy.I like to have some left over and practice marbeling whatever is on the bench while I`m baby sitting the finish.Keeps my fingers off the blank.

Freddwhy (Rapt-Ryte)

Good point. And you won't save even 50 cents worth of finish that way, maybe a nickel at the most. I did the math on this one awhile back and it was plainly not at all cost effective to mix very small batches against the possibility of having to redo something.

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Yes it is not worth the risk, unless you've done extensive testing and taken the risk out of the equasion entirly, then your supply of thread expoy last a long long time, this of course is relative to how many rods you build in a year. I was backed into a corner in the pre-syringe days when counting drops was recommened, necessity being the mother of invention.