CA Thickening

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keithbyrd

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Mount Wolf, PA
Does anyone have a problem with shelf life for CA? The last year and a half my CA thickens in the bottle and its maybe open for 6 months. I have thrown away 4 bottles of thin and medium CA. I usually cap it but not always and for several years I almost never capped it and it lasted till I ran out. Does anyone know if stickfast has changed the formulation?
 
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Everything has a shelf life, even Twinkies. I have used stick fast until recently (changed because I moved and Rockler and Woodcraft are too far away and I can get BSI within 5 miles). But as far as changing there formulation they may have, or one of their suppliers changed one of the things they purchase to make stick fast ( this happened to us all the time in the ink business, all of a sudden things would get all screwed up just to find out are supplier changed something and they didn't tell us) or maybe they couldn't get the ingredient they used to and had to use something else. Anyway, I too used to leave my stick fast uncapped for a long time, like a year with the large bottle, and before I changed around the first of this year, I also was throwing away bottles because they got thick and didn't seem to cure as well. So I would say yes, something did change.
 
As Rob said above, humidity is a major cause.
For optimum shelf life, store your CA in a dry, cool, and dark place. And keep it far away from where you keep your accelerator.

The length of time your bottle sat around in the store or warehouse before you purchased it also is a determining factor.
 
thebillofwrites said:
As Rob said above, humidity is a major cause.
For optimum shelf life, store your CA in a dry, cool, and dark place. And keep it far away from where you keep your accelerator.

The length of time your bottle sat around in the store or warehouse before you purchased it also is a determining factor.
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I agree, especially with the time it sits around in the store. I moved from the seattle area to the portland area and when i go to woodcraft and rockler, i see fewer people in the portland area stores and the product doesn't seem to move as fast, not just CA but other pen supplies. Keep in mind though I have only been to them twice since the first of the year now that I buy most of my stuff online.
 
question

thebillofwrites said:
As Rob said above, humidity is a major cause.
For optimum shelf life, store your CA in a dry, cool, and dark place. And keep it far away from where you keep your accelerator.

When you say a cool dry and dark place - where do you store yours? Trouble identifying a place in the basement, close to workplace for easy access, that is dry - when humidity, even with AC is high.
Click to expand...
 
I've had great experience with dessicant from Preservation Station -- I buy the "[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,SansSerif][SIZE=-1][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,SansSerif]2 Gram Indicating Silica Gel Desiccant Packs[/FONT][/SIZE][/FONT]" (they fit perfectly in the gaps in my underwater camera housing.) When the indicator strip turns pink, I put them in a "laundry delicates bag" and throw them in the tumble dryer till they turn blue again. (The microwave was a bad idea.)

LINK
 
CA does have a shelf life. Standard ECA is about 5-6 months. Other like methox has a shelf life of 1 1/2 to 2 years. When CA ages it does thicken. This is one way you can tell the difference. When you see a new bottle vs an old bottle the old bottle will always be thicker. Thicker does not mean better in this case.

CA has additives which makes it higher viscosity from the factory, essentially it's the same ingredients as in casting resin. This is what we refer to as 'thin', 'medium', 'thick', 'super thin' and the like. This is the difference, thin has the least casting agents in it while thick has the most. From this if you want to seal then use in, if you want to fill then use something thicker.

From this logic you can deduce that a thicker CA that is flexible and a slow polymerization factor would be a superior finish that is not brittle.

As for what you have I am not sure the brand but it's pushing the window so do yourself and your clients a favor, toss it in the trash and buy a good label, good material that is fresh and problem free.

Hope this helps. ....
 
Storing unopened bottles of CA in the fridge is a great way to extend its shelf life, but once it's opened, it should not be put back into the fridge. Moving back and from from warm/hot to cold environment will cause condensation inside the bottle and ruin the CA. Once it's opened, just bring it inside the house to keep it as "fresh" as possible.

Personally, I don't heed my own advise, though. I just leave the bottles I'm using out on the bench in the garage year round and haven't had any problems. The temps range in the garage from the upper 30's in the winter to upper 90's in the summer with humidity regularly pushing 80%.
 
Thanks for all the feedback! I have used CA for the past 6-7 years and only in the last 6-12 months have I had any problems. And have been using the same brand 90% of the time. I will try the zip loc back and dessicant idea and see if that improves!!
Again thanks for the feedback.
 
FWIW FasrCap 2P10 has an advertised shelf life of 2 years.

I always cap my bottles immediately after use and I keep both my unopened and "in-use" bottles in my shop. I can't say for certain about the shelf life because I've only been using it about 18 months, but it definitely outlasts Stick Fast under the same conditions in my shop.
 
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