This recent thread on crystallized epoxy was certainly timely.  A couple of weeks ago my garage heater stopped working (it's now fixed) and for one night the temperature got to about 35F.  I didn't measure the temperature but it was chilly!

Last night I was making a flange and mixing some micro for an access panel in my center console.  I heard some scraping when I was pouring out the resin but didn't really investigate.  (Does it bother anyone else that much of the machine that we'll trust our lives to is manuactured at night, after work, when we're tired?)  This morning I was going to mix some more micro to touch up the edges of the access panel when I noticed that the scraping sound was the iceberg of crystallized resin sliding around in the bottom of my one-gallon resin bottle.  Hmmmm.... 

This might explain why the micro I mixed up last night and the 4-BID flange I made appeared to be just a little softer than usual this morning.  However, this afternoon (8 hours later) they appear fully cured.  This is a totally non-structural item so I'm not going to remanufacture it.  It's fine as is.

So I took the bottle of resin, put it in a plastic pan, and put it in the bathtub with hot water running into the pan.  I was going to leave the water running but there was so little left in the bottle that it was bobbing around in the pan, and this bathtub faucet did not allow me to run just a trickle, so I just let it soak.  Less than a half-hour later the iceberg was fully melted.  When it cools, I'm going to mix up some more micro for touching up the access panel edges.

It's worthwhile to note that the dribbles of resin from the outside of the bottle left an oily sheen on the water in the pan.  I'm not sure I'd do this in the kitchen sink unless I was unmarried (or wanted to become that way again).  Use the guest bathtub, like I did...

If there's anything funky with the micro I mix up tonight, I'll let you know.  But I'm not expecting any problems.  Oh, and also, this epoxy is about 3 months beyond the expiration date so I was about to replace it anyway.  Even though the experts in our group tell us that the expiration date is more of a guideline than a hard requirement, I don't use expired adhesives for anything but mixing up micro or attaching a non-structural click bond fastener (a wire tie holder) or something equally minor.

- Rob Wolf