Epoxy didn't stick

Long shot - was it mixed 1:1 ? sometimes we all goof up on something so simple.
 
Ha! I have done that plenty of times and the light bulb in my head usually comes on in the middle of spraying! I could be mistaken but I was pretty sure I mixed it 1 : 1. I was trying to be careful and I didn't get that funny feeling like I forgot something. And it is dry and hard. By hard I mean it is not gooey. Seemes like it is cured and flexible but just didn't stick.
 
Where you broke through, see if it is sticking to the metal better now, that is is broken open and has had time to cure, if it is gaining adhesion you may be good to go.

This will happen if it was either under activated or if metal was just too cool and epoxy did not set long enough but usually savable.
 
I think 90f air temp was mentioned .
No surface temps were mentioned, were any surface temps taken?

I have a wall thermometer ( which only shows local air temp right off the wall surface)and a non contact temp gun. I shoot all the panels, the floor of the shop, the walls and try and get a good idea of what the temp is of the overall area. Only takes 2 minutes and I know if I am needing to wait or good to go.
 
i found infared thermometer is a good friend to have when winter time is here. dont know if that was your though, it does sound like containmation on the metal somehow. good luck
 
I also use a kerosene torpedo heater. My workspace is small - 15'x24'. Haven't had any issues. I go through lots of towels to wipe off w/b degreaser.
 
Well something went wrong and you need to figure it out. Did you put direct heat to the panel after spraying? If so how hot do you think it got? It really appears like a contaminant got on the metal at some point. I think if it was a problem of not letting what's left of the cleaner flash off that the texture of the primer would have been worse even though there are the fisheyes just under the belt-line. An air contamination problem is possible but there would have been more fisheyes everywhere. Judging by how the breaks look it appears the cure went well.
 
Bob Hollinshead;17655 said:
Judging by how the breaks look it appears the cure went well.
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Good point, it must have activated at some point if it got that hard. My experience on this kind of thing is obviously limited, but any time I had the slightest contamination, I always got fish eyes pretty bad, and I've never had my epoxy fall off like that. Something weird is going on here, and like Bob said, you need to find out what it is before you try to re-do it.
 
Reading the description, it reads like a text book for epoxy application. The only variable here seems to be the heater. It's almost like there was a very fine film all over the metal.
 
Using shop rags or any kind of towel that has been through the wash for W&G remover instead of prep wipes will cause this.
 
View attachment 1038

Ok I went out and checked again this morning. No bueno. But I did find something interesting. A couple of weekends ago I put in a new tail light panel. I left the black coating on there except for where I welded. Just hit it with a red scotch brite and epoxy. It was sprayed at the same time as the quarters. It is hard to tell because it's black on black, but I think it stuck pretty well to the tail light panel.

Thanks again guys for all your input. To answer some of your questions, the heater was blowing down the side of the car, but not directly on it. The thermometer I have is just a little digital one that sits on my mixing table, and I always use the blue shop towels to wipe things down with.

Tonight I will get a thermometer that will tell me the surface temp of my metal. I'll also try some solvent based w/g remover to use in addition to the waterborne. I'll find another place for my heater and try it again tomorrow.

Barry, I must say that I'm impressed that a guy as busy as you seem to be will take the time to read all of these and address things with "the little people." That's good service.
 
Since the epoxy cured and is obviously linked together my thoughts are that something was on the metal that did not allow the epoxy to adhere. I only had this happen one time to me and it was because I had used Dupont Metal Prep on the bare metal. Unfortunately I did not find out until the car was being buffed out and a blister kept raising up. When I finally broke the blister open I could see that nothing had adhered to the surface and the paint job peeled right off.
 
Something is just not right here.
Lets say the temp was perfect - 75 Degrees and metal temp was 68-70 and metal was perfectly cleaned and epoxy was mixed to perfect ratio.

Here is how it should cure out, 2-3 wet coats:

24 hours, a razor scraper you should be-able to scrap about 2-6 inches off of the metal before it stops or gets harder to do.

48 hours, you may scrap 1-2 inches.

72 hours, you may get to see metal or you may never get that deep.
Most likely all you can do is gouge the epoxy.

This is a normal curing process with the epoxy.

The picture you are showing, I can see enough to know there is and never was any adhesion at all and never will be if it s been 24 hours.

ONLY thing I know will do that is acid, nothing else will cause it to come off so perfect and would be more hit and miss such as peel here and some stick here and even if this was activate in error 4:1 after 48-72 hours it would not come off like this, nor would normal contamination.

Heater did not do this, as it would peel different if did.
What did you clean quarter with and after you dried it how long did it set before epoxy?
Did the whole quarter gas or fishee?
Only other thing i could think of if you used 700 cleaner and dried and shot epoxy right away but the whole quarter would have gassed like by the glass part.
If you did not use 700 cleaner cheap brands of wax and grease removers have been know to have acid in them from bad recycling of solvents, yea, I know they are virgin solvents but we have a lot of women in Blairsville with kids that are virgins also.
 
Barryk;17694 said:
Something is just not right here.
Lets say the temp was perfect - 75 Degrees and metal temp was 68-70 and metal was perfectly cleaned and epoxy was mixed to perfect ratio.

Here is how it should cure out, 2-3 wet coats:

24 hours, a razor scraper you should be-able to scrap about 2-6 inches off of the metal before it stops or gets harder to do.

48 hours, you may scrap 1-2 inches.

72 hours, you may get to see metal or you may never get that deep.
Most likely all you can do is gouge the epoxy.

This is a normal curing process with the epoxy.

The picture you are showing, I can see enough to know there is and never was any adhesion at all and never will be if it s been 24 hours.

ONLY thing I know will do that is acid, nothing else will cause it to come off so perfect and would be more hit and miss such as peel here and some stick here and even if this was activate in error 4:1 after 48-72 hours it would not come off like this, nor would normal contamination.

Heater did not do this, as it would peel different if did.
What did you clean quarter with and after you dried it how long did it set before epoxy?
Did the whole quarter gas or fishee?
Only other thing i could think of if you used 700 cleaner and dried and shot epoxy right away but the whole quarter would have gassed like by the glass part.
If you did not use 700 cleaner cheap brands of wax and grease removers have been know to have acid in them from bad recycling of solvents, yea, I know they are virgin solvents but we have a lot of women in Blairsville with kids that are virgins also.
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As the little Mexican boy told me when I was in Tijuana back in the late 70's - Mester, 10 dollars and you can sleep with my mother, she is a virgin.
 
Barryk;17694 said:
If you did not use 700 cleaner cheap brands of wax and grease removers have been know to have acid in them from bad recycling of solvents, yea, I know they are virgin solvents but we have a lot of women in Blairsville with kids that are virgins also.
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LMAO! So temped to make that my signature.....haha.
 
There's absolutely no adhesion to the texture of the sanding scratches at all so it has to be a contamination issue, some scrubbing with a red scotchbrite, dawn dishsoap and water with some ajax cleanser, rinse well, hit it with some solvent based cleaner, sand with 80 on a DA again, clean with waterborne, allow 30 minutes then prime it again and your problem will be gone. Use good towels or if you use regular paper toweling Bounty non printed works fine. Some regular paper toweling has contaminants, printed and non printed and I think some are being made out of recycled paper. Or buy good quality toweling designed for prepaint cleaning.
 
"a lot of women in Blairsville with kids that are virgins also." That is the funniest thing I've heard all week!
 
Bob Hollinshead;17707 said:
There's absolutely no adhesion to the texture of the sanding scratches at all so it has to be a contamination issue, some scrubbing with a red scotchbrite, dawn dishsoap and water with some ajax cleanser, rinse well, hit it with some solvent based cleaner, sand with 80 on a DA again, clean with waterborne, allow 30 minutes then prime it again and your problem will be gone. Use good towels or if you use regular paper toweling Bounty non printed works fine. Some regular paper toweling has contaminants, printed and non printed and I think some are being made out of recycled paper. Or buy good quality toweling designed for prepaint cleaning.
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Yeah, we didn't hear anything about what type of wipe was used to clean the metal. If no metal treatments were used, this is about the only thing it could be.
 
after reading Bob's post about which towels to use, you have to be careful with shop rags, some have an oil base when new. Don't know what you used, just thought I would mention this
 
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