AlnessW
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- Oct 6, 2013
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Had a super weird experience mixing West Systems 105/205 epoxy today. I was doing my usual nosecone anchor "layups" with Kevlar as seen in numerous of my build threads.
2 pumps of 105 resin, 2 pumps of 205 fast hardener, mix thoroughly in cup. Apply layups to first nosecone...no problems so far.
Move on to second nosecone, add one section of Kevlar as the epoxy starts to quickly heat up. After I got that in place, maybe 20 seconds later as I'm soaking the next section of Kevlar, the mix continues heating up until it's nearly scalding, practically burning my fingers and starting to melt the inside of the plastic cup I was mixing in. As this point the epoxy is curing super quickly (within seconds it's suddenly very firm) and giving off small amounts of smoke. I was so worried about it spontaneously combusting that I moved the cup and mixing stick outside, but thankfully it didn't.
I went back to check on my first nosecone and the epoxy there (from that same batch!) showed no signs of heating or smoking, and in fact was still runny as it should have been.
Anyone seen this kind of thing happen with West Systems before? I'm baffled because I've mixed over a dozen batches of this stuff in the exact same fashion and never had a problem - same cups, same sticks, etc... Could there have been some sort of contaminant inside the cup from before that reacted with the epoxy?
Any theories are welcome...
2 pumps of 105 resin, 2 pumps of 205 fast hardener, mix thoroughly in cup. Apply layups to first nosecone...no problems so far.
Move on to second nosecone, add one section of Kevlar as the epoxy starts to quickly heat up. After I got that in place, maybe 20 seconds later as I'm soaking the next section of Kevlar, the mix continues heating up until it's nearly scalding, practically burning my fingers and starting to melt the inside of the plastic cup I was mixing in. As this point the epoxy is curing super quickly (within seconds it's suddenly very firm) and giving off small amounts of smoke. I was so worried about it spontaneously combusting that I moved the cup and mixing stick outside, but thankfully it didn't.
I went back to check on my first nosecone and the epoxy there (from that same batch!) showed no signs of heating or smoking, and in fact was still runny as it should have been.
Anyone seen this kind of thing happen with West Systems before? I'm baffled because I've mixed over a dozen batches of this stuff in the exact same fashion and never had a problem - same cups, same sticks, etc... Could there have been some sort of contaminant inside the cup from before that reacted with the epoxy?
Any theories are welcome...