Marine Tex Fail...Whatsup?

[SoonerFan]

Trying to patch a small chip about the size of a quarter on my gunwale. I'm using the same 14oz kit of Marine Tex that I've used successfully on several other projects. I'm following the instructions to the letter as far as mixing it. Since I'm only mixing a small amount, I just use the point of a plastic knife and put out 5 little dabs of the white filler and 1 dab of hardener about the same size as the other dabs and then mix it up. The instructions state that a 10% error is allowable and to err on the side of less hardener. That's what I did.

Twice now it hasn't hardened. I skins over but is soft and mushy to finger pressure (like latex caulk) even after over 48 hours. Even after several days, I could scrape it out with a flat screwdriver with no trouble. Sort of like scraping chewing gum off the floor.

I have two theories .... One is I screwed up on the proportions of catalyst to filler twice in a row or the kit I have is passed on by. I've had it since 2018. Does that stuff expire? I can't find much info about it in that respect.

[Fishysam]

I thought when I did it it said put more hardener in to be safe, I put a bunch in , worked it for 5 minutes then applied for 10/15 minutes on 13 chips underneath my boat sure the second half I could feel it getting set up some it actually applied better in my opinion.

you didn't leave it in the garage did you? Over winter? High temps and humidity ?

[fishnfireman]

Sounds like you need to buy a new batch.

[mactlman]

old batch

[SoonerFan]

you didn't leave it in the garage did you? Over winter? High temps and humidity ?

Of course, where else?

Sounds like you need to buy a new batch.

Once again, I believe you’re right.

That’s handy stuff to have around when you fish small city lakes with poorly maintained docks. I used most of this kit rebuilding my recessed trolling motor tray to fit my Ultrex pedal.

[OkieLure]

Pretty sure the hardner, once opened, has shelf life of three months.

[SoonerFan]

I googled it…shelf life is two years, so that’s probably the cause of my failure. I’ll buy a smaller amount next time. A little goes a very long way.

[twitch]

try more hardener you have nothing to loose , if not buy another batch...lol

[PolarKraft195]

Pretty sure the hardner, once opened, has shelf life of three months.

Not mine. I had it for a few years, used it, and it worked fine

[mrdeath]

I used a 5 year old batch a couple of weeks ago and it still worked fine.

[bcreek]

Probably frozen hardener. Most people down your way never heard of such a thing until last winter. Try more hardener, nothing to lose.

[SoonerFan]

Okay, took you all’s advice and tried it a third time. This time, I really laid on the catalyst…probably close to 50/50. We’ll see how it goes. One thing I noticed right away was it was thicker and easier to trowel on and level off. The other two times it was thin and almost runny.

I already ordered the 2oz size from Amazon. It’s Prime so I can return it easily enough if attempt #3 works out.

[Fishysam]

I read not to store cooler than 55f on my package just for future reference

[high 2]

If your garage isn’t heated the cold snap we had this past winter probably got to it. My shop is heated. I use too much stuff in my business that can’t freeze.

[SoonerFan]

Third try was a fail. It was gummier than the other two times. That's okay, I have a 2 oz kit coming from Amazon tomorrow.

Lesson learned.

[Garfish]

Clean the old stuff out/off with acetone before you mix the new

[SoonerFan]

Didn’t have any acetone on hand but alcohol cuts it real good so I used that and picked out any leftovers. Mixed up some of the fresh Marine Tex that Amazon delivered. Harder than Chinese arithmetic the next day. So definitely the problem with the old stuff is it was old.