Epoxy in cold weather

I have been sealing the chines and various dings and blemishes with some Raka epoxy in my garage the past few nights. The temperature has been rather cold and the epoxy has not set. It stayed runny and even after 'tending to it' with a putty knife it still sagged. Should I add more wood dust and silica powder to add to it? maybe use more hardener? Or just rent a spaceheater this weekend and warm my garage up to 80 degrees?

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Permalink Reply by Greg Hatten on February 18, 2009 at 5:04pm
Craig, I'm familiar with the temperature problem you are facing... I moved my operation indoors and applied the epoxy to the sides of my boat in the front entryway... (you can see my side panels drying in my album on this site - Boat Building 101). I would highly recommend this but you need a very "understanding" wife...
If you can get your garage cranked up to 80 - that is a great solution... I didn't have a space heater that would do that and I had "overspent" my boat budget at that point so I had to get a little bit creative.
GH
Permalink Reply by lhedrick on February 18, 2009 at 5:05pm
If you mixed it properly then don't add more hardener. If the shop has been 50 or colder you need to get heat into the shop. It will then cure. If you are working in a cold shop I am making the assumption you have used the Raka 610 fast hardener. With a warm shop 60 plus it should start to harden in about 3 hours.

If a warm shop does not cure the epoxy, then lets assume the mix as incorrect. Then it will need to be striped off. Trust me, this is not fun. Wash and scrape it off with acetone.
Permalink Reply by Jason Knight on February 18, 2009 at 5:22pm
I have been doing all my work in the garage with a forced air propane heater to initially warm the air - then I turn on a kerosene convection heater to keep it warm. Haven't had any problems with epoxy setting up. And that is only heated during the times when I am working - the rest of the time it has been at or below freezing. The epoxy has been setting up fine in there under those conditions.

Find a buddy with a construction site style forced air heater - they will cook you out of there in a few minutes.
Good luck.
-jk-
Permalink Reply by Craig on February 18, 2009 at 6:11pm
Thanks for the advice!!! It finally hardened almost 24 hours later. I think I'll rent a space heater this weekend just to get the epoxy work done. Removing unset epoxy sounds horrible.
Permalink Reply by Jesse Ronnow on February 18, 2009 at 7:31pm
I live in Eastern Idaho and it's colder than.... well you get the point. I would say a propane "blast" or "cannon" heater would be the best. I have been running one in my shop off and on for the better part of the last week on one, small BBQ style, tank. There are several good things about a heater of this sort. First a little BBQ propane tank is cheap to file second they get super super hot and third they can be directed with great efficiency. One of the guys I fish with is a home builder and he has a great big one that he runs in his houses in the winter before the furnace is installed. My guess is that any tools rental shop around will have one. Good luck with the weather. Hopefully Apollo will smile on you this weekend. ;)

Good Luck,

JDR
Permalink Reply by Kevin C. on March 2, 2009 at 7:25am
A very simple and cost effective way of curing epoxy in this situation would be to "tent" the boat with a tarp and place a small heater(we use one of those elec.radiator looking models)under the boatmThis will bring the temp. Of the boat up without having to heat the whole garage.Those blast heaters are effective but often will sap all the oxygen out of a room so be sure to ventilate.In a 30 degree space you can easily get your boat up to 60 degrees with a simple tarp setup.
Permalink Reply by lhedrick on March 3, 2009 at 6:50pm
Heat will definitely get epoxy to cure faster but remember this. Wood and plywood contains air inside the cells. If epoxy is applied and the wood is placed in a warmer environment the air will expand and cause bubbles all over the wood which are a pain to sand off. So if you are going to use heat give the wood a chance to come up to the temperature of the "tent" or warm shop before epoxy is applied. This is less of a problem after the first coat of sealing epoxy or glass. But I have had a few bubble come through fiber glass when I have placed a panel in the sun to cure.

This works in reverse also. If the wood is heated it will pull epoxy into the wood if it is cured in a setting which is just a bit cooler.

L
Permalink Reply by Jason Knight on March 4, 2009 at 8:52am
Yeah that seems to make sense. I was applying the epoxy with the temperature up to about 65 degrees, then backing the temperature down after the epoxy was on the wood. It seemed to pull it into the wood very well with no bubbling.

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