Storing and Pouring resin

[elody21]

All this talk about resin etc.. and it finally is getting warm outside got me wanting to get my stuff out again to make blanks.
I have trouble with pouring resin from the large gallon jug without making a mess. With the help of a funnel I filled a cleaned out plastic syrup bottle !!! It works great it has a large hole in the lid and a flip up top. So much easier that the gallon jug.

 

[Daniel]

Having just poured my first. I punched a 1/4 inch hole in the lid of the can. this kept the resin from pouring real fast. but the gal can was awkward. good idea. think I'll have pancakes in the morning.

 

[JimGo]

Thanks Alice!

 

[YoYoSpin]

I picked up some one gallon plastic bottles that come with a one ounce per pump dispenser recently and they work great...here's the link: http://tinyurl.com/afc92

 

[jdavis]

Good info. We are starting to pour next school year.

 

[green-eyes]

Do you store the resin in the jug? Boy that sounds like a stupid question. My reason for asking is I was wondering if the jug will break down over time. I recently started with PR and it will take me awhile to get through a gallon jug. I don't want to come into the shop one day and find it all over the place.

 

[elody21]

Originally posted by green-eyes
<br />Do you store the resin in the jug? Boy that sounds like a stupid question. My reason for asking is I was wondering if the jug will break down over time. I recently started with PR and it will take me awhile to get through a gallon jug. I don't want to come into the shop one day and find it all over the place.

That is a very good question!!! PR sometimes melts plastic! The syrup bottle worked very well and did not break down. I had a problem and left the lid a jar for a couple of days and the resin (without any activator in it) got totally hard. It was out on the porch at 90 deg also so I do not know if the heat played a part in it also. It was fortunally only a few ounces in the bottle left so I did not loose too much. I know have it in a veg. oil bottle (Enova) and so far no problem. But I guess you take your own chances if you change the container the resin came in.

 

[green-eyes]

I just ordered the one gallon jug with the pump on top. It should be hear soon. I think I will test it with a little resin first.

 

[btboone]

Polyethylene or polypropylene, the plastics used in squeeze containers should be OK. It's what they store acid in. The stuff you don't want is polystyrene, which will get eaten quickly. Solo cups come in polystyrene (PS) or PETE. PETE is better to use for polyester, so look at the recycling mark on the bottom before buying them for mixing cups.

Another thing to be aware of is that the catalyst is a strong oxidizer and will rust steels including stainless steels, so watch where you use it.

 

[green-eyes]

I use Solo cups to mix the resin in before pouring into the molds. I thought it would be good to pour out 4 or 5 cups of it so I could mix the catalyst and color in faster. WRONG. By the time I got to the third cup the bottom was starting to split. It is okay one at a time but, I won't pour more than one from now on. I am waiting on the molds that Anthony uses to come in the mail now. Thanks for the info. I will keep that in mind!

 

[btboone]

I just did some casting and am trying out an overcasting technique for a pen. When I turned the freshly cast polyester, I just left the chips in the lathe. The next morning, the steel ways of the lathe had spots of rust. I assumed that my coolant mixture had gotten weak, so I check it with a refractometer, and it looked OK. I then realized that it was the oxidizer from the polyester that did it. Oops. Should have vacuumed the shavings when I was done.

 

[elody21]

I noticed rust on my lathe also ! But I was thinking it was from the wet MM I was using. VERY INTERESTING!

 

[btboone]

Alice, it might be the combination of polyester shavings and being wet. The water would get pretty reactive that way. I had lots of small randomly spaced spots of very intense rust on an otherwise nicely ground and cleaned surface of the tailstock ways.

 

[elody21]

Originally posted by btboone
<br />Polyethylene or polypropylene, the plastics used in squeeze containers should be OK. It's what they store acid in. The stuff you don't want is polystyrene, which will get eaten quickly. Solo cups come in polystyrene (PS) or PETE. PETE is better to use for polyester, so look at the recycling mark on the bottom before buying them for mixing cups.

Another thing to be aware of is that the catalyst is a strong oxidizer and will rust steels including stainless steels, so watch where you use it.

Thanks for the info.! Would you say that something like a gallon milk or water jug probably would be a no no?

 

[btboone]

I would think that the milk jug should work OK. The water jug if it's the clear type might be a plastic that gets eaten. I don't know if they all use the same or different plastics for those.

 

[alamocdc]

I learned something about this yesterday while browsing the Mr. Fiberglass web site. [8D] PR eats polystyrene containers because it is a styrene product. Okay, so I get a little excited when I get a new wrinkle in my brain. [:I]