REFLECTOR: Vin de Velocitie

[Brooke Wolf]

A while back I posted a question on this list regarding "hardening  
hardeners".  To recap, I was having difficulty with EZ-Poxy hardener  
becoming too thick to  work with.  The hardener came with my kit  from  
the factory less than 2 years ago.  I kept the hardener at a temp of  
about 85 deg in a heating cabinet.  Heating it up to a temp of about  
130 deg helped for a while but it  would soon return to a viscous  
state that made it unusable.  Pretty soon I gave up and retrieved  
another 1/2 gal jug that had been stored in my basement for two years  
at a constant 70-75 deg temp.  This hardener had crystalized and was  
barely pourable.  I heated it to about 130 degrees and it returned to  
a normal viscosity.

While enjoying a glass of wine one evening I began to think about this  
issue.  Why did the hardener in my warming cabinet become unusable  
while the stuff (from presumably the same batch) stored in a sealed  
bottle at a cooler temperature was quite satisfactory.  The only  
environmental difference between the two was temperature and exposure  
to air.  (The stuff in the basement was in a full 1/2 gal container  
that had never been opened).  Controlling temperature would be easy,  
but how could I control exposure to air.  I took another sip of wine  
and then it struck me!  Preserve the hardener as I do wine.

Saving an unfinished bottle of wine for a few days oftentimes resulted  
in less that optimum flavor ......until we found a simple vacuum  
system.  It consists of a rubber type stopper and a hand vacuum pump.   
By putting the leftover wine in a partial vacuum we found that we  
could preserve it quite satisfactorily for over a week.  VOILA... Vin  
de Velocitie.  I put some of the new hardener in my ratio pump and put  
the rest in a wine bottle sealed with the vacuum stopper.  So far, it  
looks as if the hardener in the wine bottle is maintaining its  
viscosity.

Of course, to make this all happen, I had to finish the bottle of wine  
(so I could have the bottle).  It was but a small sacrifice to further  
the cause of science and experimental aviation!

Brooke






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