Storage of Polyester Resin and Expanding Foam

[Shakedownscott]

A two week break from my boat project has turned into about two months of not much getting done on it. During this time colder weather has settled in and winter is just around the corner. Instead of working on the boat I have been taking care of all of the typical fall chores. At this point they are pretty much done and I am ready to get back to the boat.

I have about 4 gallons of polyester resin in a 5 gallon pail and approx., 50 lbs of urethane expanding foam. I have stored the expanding foam in my basement, seems to be a good spot to keep it out of the way for now. I had the poly resin down there for about an hour before the admiral told me to get that stinky stuff out of the house.

Luckily I have a furnace in my garage, so I fired that up and I have been storing it out there at around 50 F. I am thinking about moving the resin to (4) 1 gallon containers that previously had resin In them.

I have a few questions that I hope you guys can help with.

1. What is the shelf life of the expanding foam?

2. Whats the best storage temp for the foam?

3. What would be a minimum temp to store the poly resin at?

Hoping to get a lot of work done over the upcoming winter but not exactly sure how its going to work out when its zero degrees out there :smow:

 

[gm280]

OH...polyester really doesn't have a very long shelf life. In fact the manufacturer states that 6 months is about it. But properly sealed and in a controlled situation, you may get by with it a little longer. You'll just have to do a test batch when you get back to working the boat again. And it may even be where you will need to buy new MEKP as well. That too goes bad fairly quickly. As for the foam, I really have no idea. You could contact the manufacture for that and see what they say. I have some of each myself and hopefully get to use it before it expires as well. JMHO!

 

[JASinIL2006]

A two week break from my boat project has turned into about two months of not much getting done on it. During this time colder weather has settled in and winter is just around the corner. Instead of working on the boat I have been taking care of all of the typical fall chores. At this point they are pretty much done and I am ready to get back to the boat.

I have about 4 gallons of polyester resin in a 5 gallon pail and approx., 50 lbs of urethane expanding foam. I have stored the expanding foam in my basement, seems to be a good spot to keep it out of the way for now. I had the poly resin down there for about an hour before the admiral told me to get that stinky stuff out of the house.

Luckily I have a furnace in my garage, so I fired that up and I have been storing it out there at around 50 F. I am thinking about moving the resin to (4) 1 gallon containers that previously had resin In them.

I have a few questions that I hope you guys can help with.

1. What is the shelf life of the expanding foam?

2. Whats the best storage temp for the foam?

3. What would be a minimum temp to store the poly resin at?

Hoping to get a lot of work done over the upcoming winter but not exactly sure how its going to work out when its zero degrees out there :smow:

I did my glassing in a garage over the winter, so it can be done. I don't think putting your resin in smaller containers will make much of a difference for storage over a few months. You might want to get fresh MEKP if it sits for very long. The cans of foam should be fine; I've never heard of them having a short shelf life.


I don't think storing your resin at cool temps will hurt one bit. You will want to bring it to room temp before using it or it might not catalyze properly. I did my 'glassing in a garage heated with propane heaters and as long as I got the temps up to 70 or so, it was fine.

 

[Shakedownscott]

Thanks guys for the helpful info. The resin is about 3 months old and the MEKP maybe 4 moths. Sounds like it should be good for a little while. I am going to try and use it in the next month or so.

JASin checked out your restoration thread, great job on the rebuild. When you were using your heater I am assuming you shut it off when you were glassin? Did you open any doors when you did a big lay up like the transom?

 

[DeepBlue2010]

If you have the resin in the garage, put it on wood logs and cover it with some old blanket or carpets. When you get ready to use it, look inside, you should see no crystals. Only liquid. MEKP has much longer life, I would not be worried about it before 18-24 months or so

 

[JASinIL2006]

Thanks guys for the helpful info. The resin is about 3 months old and the MEKP maybe 4 moths. Sounds like it should be good for a little while. I am going to try and use it in the next month or so.

JASin checked out your restoration thread, great job on the rebuild. When you were using your heater I am assuming you shut it off when you were glassin? Did you open any doors when you did a big lay up like the transom?

I handled the MEKP outside, away from the heaters. From whar I read, unless you're really putting out a LOT of resin (like running a chopper gun), there isn't much risk from volatile fumes. I kept the MEKP away from open flames, though.

 

[Shakedownscott]

I didn't know the MEKP was more flammable than the resin, good to know.

It was in the 40's today and I heated the garage to 70F before mixing up a batch of PB. Everything went well and it kicked off with no problems. Actually kicked before I was done with it. I upped the MEKP to 1.5%, thats a bit more than I had been using. Probably didn't need the extra MEKP since I was working at 70F. Next time I will dial this back a little.

Has anyone had problems shipping resin in the winter? Wondering if it could freeze if left out in a delivery truck overnight.

 

[Woodonglass]

As long as it's not in 32 degree temps for an extended period of time it won't freeze. As has been noted resin and MEKP do have "Shelf Lifes" but...they can be extended for quite a long time IF you keep them stored in Cool, Dark environments. I've had resin and MEKP that worked just fine that was stored in my Paint Locker that was 3 years old. Worked just fine. Kicked in the normal ranges at normal temps and has performed just like it did when it was new. I would always recommend testing any "Aged" resin and MEKP to ensure it DID actually perform in the prescribed manner before actually using it on a project.:nod:

 

[ondarvr]

Catalyst isn't very flammable, the issue is it can react with metals and other things (including resin) and start a fire, trying to get it to burn on it's own isn't as easy as you may think, and putting it out isn't that hard.

Resin will ignite, but not typically in an explosive way, and it takes a very high concentration of fumes to ignite in that way.

The official shelf of most resins is 3 months, but they don't go bad at 91 days. Catalyst is typically one year, but for both it can vary a great deal depending on the temperature. Lower temps are better, and freezing isn't a huge issue, 40 degrees would extend the useful life a great deal.

 

[Goldie627]

If its two part foam, the further outside the shelf life the less it will expand. Old foam closed cells seem to colapse easier than fresh foam. The outside will be tuff but the inside will be softer and more flakey than fresh. After 10 months you will probably get about half the expansion of fresh along with the other symtpoms I described. If your foam is in 5 gallon buckets pouring it down to air tight metal containers may prolong the shelf life in addition to storing in appropriate temperatures.

You could give US Composites 561-588-1001 a call... I think one of the guys is Steve... He could give you the temps and tips for prolonging the foam shelf life.

 

[Shakedownscott]

Thanks guys for all of the great information.

 

[gm280]

Odd how they will charge you for a hazard fee when shipping polyester resin, but not for MEK! And equally odd is they charge a pretty large amount of money on each bucket of resin as well. And that makes me wonder, exactly how many accidents have they actually had with polyester resin either spilling or catching on fire over the years. I never heard of any...

 

[Woodonglass]

Odd how they will charge you for a hazard fee when shipping polyester resin, but not for MEK! And equally odd is they charge a pretty large amount of money on each bucket of resin as well. And that makes me wonder, exactly how many accidents have they actually had with polyester resin either spilling or catching on fire over the years. I never heard of any...

Yeah, but that's a good thing, cuz if you were hearing about a bunch of accidents, we wouldn't have any poly resin cuz the bleeeding hearts would demand that it Go AWAY and we'd be building our boats with some sort of "GREEN" glue that wouldn't last 2 seconds but they'd be happy cuz it would be Environmentally Friendly!!!!


RANT OVER!!!!:sleeping:

 

[gm280]

Yeah, but that's a good thing, cuz if you were hearing about a bunch of accidents, we wouldn't have any poly resin cuz the bleeeding hearts would demand that it Go AWAY and we'd be building our boats with some sort of "GREEN" glue that wouldn't last 2 seconds but they'd be happy cuz it would be Environmentally Friendly!!!!


RANT OVER!!!!:sleeping:

Okay I concede...:sorry:

 

[DeepBlue2010]

Catalyst isn't very flammable, the issue is it can react with metals and other things (including resin) and start a fire, trying to get it to burn on it's own isn't as easy as you may think, and putting it out isn't that hard.

Resin will ignite, but not typically in an explosive way, and it takes a very high concentration of fumes to ignite in that way.

The official shelf of most resins is 3 months, but they don't go bad at 91 days. Catalyst is typically one year, but for both it can vary a great deal depending on the temperature. Lower temps are better, and freezing isn't a huge issue, 40 degrees would extend the useful life a great deal.

ondarvr, this reply makes me doubt everything I heard from the technical support people of a large online supplier we all use here. They told me to keep my resin in house temperature and and if it has to be kept in the garage, to make sure it is insulated and not in direct contact with concrete floors to avoid freezing.

But before I totally scratch everything they said, I have to ask?.

The resin they were addressing was vinyl ester, does this make any difference?

 

[Arawak]

1. What is the shelf life of the expanding foam?

2. Whats the best storage temp for the foam?

I bought 6-7 gallons of 5lb foam in Sept 2013 which I did not end up using for the intended project. Stored it in the cellar of my father's 100yr old house (well above freezing, but cool).

Used it in May of this year and it worked fine.

Hope that's useful to you. There's still a little left, maybe I'll mix up a batch every few years and see how it goes.

 

[ondarvr]

Deepblue

It makes no difference if it's VE, and the people that told you that have nothing to do with making or formulating resin and have little knowledge of the product. Most are just people hired off the street to sell a product they have no interset in, they give safe answers based on misconceptions and old wives tales.

Now that's a little harsh, but fairly accurate, the cooler the better, and freezing temps aren't that much of an issue. The online and retail sellers of resin are just that, they buy somebody elses product, pour it down into smaller containers with their name on it and resell it, most have no clue as to what they are even selling.

If you plan to use it, it should be warmed up so it can do what it's supposed to do, but temperature is your enemy, the warmer it is the shorter the shelf life..

 

[Shakedownscott]

I bought 6-7 gallons of 5lb foam in Sept 2013 which I did not end up using for the intended project. Stored it in the cellar of my father's 100yr old house (well above freezing, but cool).

Used it in May of this year and it worked fine.

Hope that's useful to you. There's still a little left, maybe I'll mix up a batch every few years and see how it goes.

Yes this is very helpful. Sounds like the foam may loose some of its "pop" after long term storage but still is usable for quite a long time.

Also if I need to buy resin over the winter, spending a night or so below freezing temps during delivery won't ruin it.

 

[Goldie627]

Yes this is very helpful. Sounds like the foam may loose some of its "pop" after long term storage but still is usable for quite a long time.

Also if I need to buy resin over the winter, spending a night or so below freezing temps during delivery won't ruin it.

As 2 part foam ages it definitely loses its ability to expand at the fresh foam rate. Though it may look like fresh foam on the outside after drying, pour a tiny bit, let it setup, split it down the middle, and compare how different the old cells are from when it was fresh....