Finally were a gonna do it. A 10 minute Rod Bond has been in the mill for almost a year, and were finallly going to do it. I had it ready about 4 months ago, but had to hold things up and make another change. I made the first formula to industry standards and formulated it to have a 10 minute work life at 75deg.F I forgot the boys in florida and most of the South do their thing in 90 degree weather, while around here in the U.S. proper, we hadly ever see that. The released product will have about a 10 minute work life at 90 deg.F and about 13- maybe 14 minutes at 70deg. Its formulated with the tried and true Amine structure so work life is dependent upon temperature. I could have gone the mercaptan route and it would have eased my pains considerably, but I got to thinking ------ anyone can purchase a 5 minute epoxy in any hardware store in the US, they are all mercaptan cured, and my personal belief is they are not suitable for rod building, so I wasn't just about to copy that technology. The 10 minute rod bond (named QUICK B
OND) adhers to the same technology as the other proven rod bond.

Committed ship date to stocking distributors is JULY 15th, 2008

Ralph

Thanks Ralph. I've been using the sample I recieved at the show in February to bond butt caps and real seat arbors and it has been working/bonding perfectly. Has the scent changed at all? I kindof like the peanut butter smell of the hardener on the original rod bond....

Cant wait till it is available for sale...Any idea when we will be able to purchase QUICK BOND?

-Mike

GREAT NEWS!! Here in Florida it is over 90 degrees most of the summer but in my house where my shop is we are at about 73 or 74 degrees most of the time. Which pot life should I look for?

Ooooop's I see the ship date. Sorry bout that...

-Mike

What will be the "ready to use" time? In other words, can you take it fishing in 10-15minutes?

DR

John,

The pot life will be determined by the temperature in the area where you'll be using it. If you're working inside, then the epoxy will have no idea that it's 90F outside.

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Duane

It's set to the point that you can use it in about 4 hours. Full cure won't be reached for a bit longer, but at 4 hours you'd be hard pressed to move anything.


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I was always under the impression from reading alot of info on epoxy that fast curing stuff is not as strong. Is this true?

10 minute epoxy that takes a 4hr min cure time? Whats up wth that? Sholuldn't it be 4hr????

Did I read that right??

DR

According to Ralph O'Quinn, the perception that quick cure epoxy is any less strong than a slow curing one is a log standing myth and that cure time has no bearing on strength

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!!

Henry, even if that is true, it's still going to be way stronger than stong enough. Teh problem I had with 5 minute Devcon, is it is VERY brittle in cold temps. That mightbe one reason Ralph went a different route, I dunno though I'm jus tguessing.

The time it takes for the epoxy to "set" and to cure to the point where it can be worked or used are different. At roughly 10 minutes, you won't be able to work with it anymore - it'll be sticky, thick, unworkable. That's your 10 minute working or pot life. At about 4 hours, it will be sufficiently set or cured that you can begin using it - sanding, continuing with other tasks that put it under some load, etc. I would have to ask Ralph, but my guess is that full cure takes a couple days, perhaps. But at 4 hours you can move along with your related tasks on the same rod.

How quickly the epoxy cures doesn't necessarily have anything to do with strength. The mercaptan based products that Ralph mentions above are your common hardware store variety. They just happen to be used in most of the quick set type epoxies and are not generally as strong as the amine based systems. But it's not the set and cure time that make them less strong.

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I did receive this by email a bit ago, sent by someone who is in contact with 2 chemical engineers. Add it to your information database.

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The statement about mercaptin based systems being not as strong is false. The only significant difference between mercaptin based systems and amine based systems is that mercaptin based systems will not hold up under 100% constant submersion below the waterline like amine systems will.


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Sooooooooooooo it's not as strong! What you said.

Not as strong in a marine environment, and a rather harsh one at that. Not sure our rods really get subjected to that kind of environment on a continuing basis.

One thing I should clarify, or I'll get more like this, is that most any epoxy, even common hardware store varieties, are more than strong enough for what most fishing rods go through. I know guys that have built heavy offshore trolling rods with Devcon 5-minute epoxy throughout and they're still in use, failure free, a decade or more later.

I do think that the specialty rod building epoxies are better suited for what we do mainly due to their ease of use and non-drip/run consistency.

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Billy Vivona Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Henry, even if that is true, it's still going to
> be way stronger than stong enough. Teh problem I
> had with 5 minute Devcon, is it is VERY brittle in
> cold temps. That mightbe one reason Ralph went a
> different route, I dunno though I'm jus tguessing.


This is just the product that has me leary of quick drying stuff I had two rods spin the handle with 5 min epoxy or 10 min devon cant remeber which right now but I never used it again for anything. I wont even use it for a tiptop. And surprise surprise it was brittle i heard the crunch when they came lose. But this was in pretty mild weathem, both of them.

Sometimes 5min isn't fast enough for me, other times it's too fast. But anything over 15min I just dont have a use for at all. I can tell you this, I cannot get my reel seats off using 5min FC, the only way to get them off is CUT them off.

Tip tops are not much different. A properly prepared rod tip and tip top put on with 5min FC is on there to stay. I just melted a rod tip day before yesterday trying to remove it and it was put on with 5min ....heck the deep pressed ring fell out before the 5min gave away!

The 15min gel is about perfect for me when I want something slower. Last seat I boiled in a big pot of water with the lid ON for over 1/2 an hour.....still destroyed the seat trying to get it to break free and it never did! Whole thing went to file 13, ......as usual.

I cant speak for the "off the shelf" Devcons and the like......but the 5min FC thats made for us, really works and works well.

DR

Brittleness usually indicates that the person doing the measuring and mixing got something other than a 50:50 mix. Something a long way off.

Like Duane said, they tend to be stronger than needed for our purposes although not always user friendly enough to suit our rod building tasks.

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I don't use Devcon for the same reason. I now use Selley's Araldite 5 min for assembling skeleton seats, fitting seats to arbors before reaming and fitting to the blank. I use the 2 hr Super Strength to glue stuff to the blank and gluing up cork rings, and let that cure overnight. I find I can boil the 5 minute free after a while, but the Super Strength comes close to ruining stuff before anything comes close to loose.

Rod Bond and Quick Bond, now there's a team!