Hello there,
brand new Flex Coat Ultra V High Build kit, mixed carefully and applied on my rod wrappings 6 days ago. 80°F constant temperature with 60% humidity, motor running at 4 RPM, perfectly clear but epoxy is still jelly and not completely hardened. Also checked pot and brushes leftover, same consistency.
I am worried something was wrong, any idea?

Humidity won't affect set or cure time. Improper measuring or mix will. The only other thing that is possible is that you drew both parts from the same bottle. So start by looking at the level in the bottles. If they're uneven, you've found your problem.

...........

Either you got a bad batch of product, a mismarked bottle, or you made a major error in your 50/50 mix, which you believe you did not. Above suggestion is a good one. If bottles are uneven, you mixed only from one.

Regardless, I think your results are unworkable at this point. I am not sure how you can remove the jelly-like epoxy and save the wraps. I would try to scrape off as much as you can and then apply a new coat, maybe with different product.

My fault. I used a precision scale instead of measuring liquid amount with syringes, believing it was the same thing.
Hardener is heavier than resin, so... here's the mistake.

Thanks Tom ;)

There you go - it would be very hard to get a "bad batch" as hundreds of bottles of the product are bottled from the same multi-gallon drums. A lot of people would be having similar issues. Flex Coat is the #1 seller of rod wrapping epoxy so there'd be an outpouring of customers having similar issues.

Now here's something for you to try - put on a rubber glove and use a finger to wipe off as much epoxy from the wraps as you can. Then, properly measure (by volume) a new batch of epoxy and apply that per normal. You may and probably will find that the epoxy will set and cure properly and you won't have to rewrap all the guides.

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I had this happen with a defective product sent to me. Not what you want to hear, but I would strip everything and start over. Even if you wipe everything down, the epoxy absorbed into the tread will cause blemishes in the finish. I tried wiping down with isopropyl and reapplying finish but it looked like crap. I then tore everything apart and started all wraps from scratch.

Todd Jensen Wrote:
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> I had this happen with a defective product sent to
> me. Not what you want to hear, but I would strip
> everything and start over. Even if you wipe
> everything down, the epoxy absorbed into the tread
> will cause blemishes in the finish. I tried
> wiping down with isopropyl and reapplying finish
> but it looked like crap. I then tore everything
> apart and started all wraps from scratch.

I hope this never happens to me. Sounds like a nightmare

Todd Jensen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I had this happen with a defective product sent to
> me. Not what you want to hear, but I would strip
> everything and start over. Even if you wipe
> everything down, the epoxy absorbed into the tread
> will cause blemishes in the finish. I tried
> wiping down with isopropyl and reapplying finish
> but it looked like crap. I then tore everything
> apart and started all wraps from scratch.


Your issue was with the fact that you wiped the wraps with a solvent. NEVER do this.

.........

I'd prefer to strip down the rod and restart from scratch. Uncured epoxy inside and under thread fibers is not a good thing.
Thanks everybody



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/2024 04:26PM by Gianmaria Vigo.

" it would be very hard to get a "bad batch" as hundreds of bottles of the product are bottled from the same multi-gallon drums." Which would logically mean that there would be hundreds if not thousands of "bad batches" out there. Convenient argument, but not likely.

Rather than rip down I would follow Tom's suggestion. Get as much off and then apply a new coat. What do you have to lose but one application of epoxy? If that does not work, then you re=wrap. If it works, great.

Did you use color preservative?

Michael Danek Wrote:
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> " it would be very hard to get a "bad batch" as
> hundreds of bottles of the product are bottled
> from the same multi-gallon drums." Which would
> logically mean that there would be hundreds if not
> thousands of "bad batches" out there. Convenient
> argument, but not likely.

If you have visited an epoxy operation you know how the bottling process works. It would be very unlikely that two bottles (or even just one) would somehow be bad while all the others are fine. The bottlers typically assign a batch number to a given run. If somebody did get a bad epoxy kit, it would almost certainly mean that all the kits run in that batch would be flawed as well and due to the same equipment malfunction or a bad 55 gallon drum full of one epoxy part or the other.

I cannot speak for the "home bottlers" (of which there are a few) who may not have the same sort of bottling equipment the major players have.

................

Tom Kirkman Wrote:
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>... The only other thing that is possible is that you drew both parts from the same bottle....

...or, in my case once, you drew the same part from two separate bottles.