How often should I clean epoxy pumps?

[Jdege]

So, I'm building an outrigger sailing canoe - stitch&glue.

And I'm working with epoxy for the first time.


West System 105/205 with the calibrated measuring pumps.

I was told that I can and should clean the pumps with denatured alcohol.

I did some practice, yesterday, painting some scrap ply with epoxy, then cleaning up. And that all seemed to work well enough.

But how often should I clean up the pumps? After every daily work session?

Or should I just leave them in the cans until this project is complete, which might be four-to-six weeks?

[heron237]

I never clean the pumps, but you might want to poke a breather hole in the hardener can to prevent the hardener from weeping out the pump.....

[Allied39]

Back in the day when I used pumps I never cleaned them. What I did do on a regular basis was pump into measuring cups to make sure they were on.

After a while I dumped the pumps and went to measuring cups......but that being said I would go through a LOT of epoxy.

West is not the only epoxy out there.....but the most expensive. I don't think it's the best either. If you are doing more than the one project might be worth looking into the others.

I am a systems three guy.

No, not going to argue about it with anyone.

[thinwater]

Never.


I actually prefer to weigh the resin when working at home. More accurate, any batch size.

[Jdege]

Originally Posted by Allied39

Back in the day when I used pumps I never cleaned them. What I did do on a regular basis was pump into measuring cups to make sure they were on.

After a while I dumped the pumps and went to measuring cups......but that being said I would go through a LOT of epoxy.

West is not the only epoxy out there.....but the most expensive. I don't think it's the best either. If you are doing more than the one project might be worth looking into the others.

I am a systems three guy.

No, not going to argue about it with anyone.

I'm building one canoe. I might need two gallons, maybe three.

And West System is what the one chandler within convenient driving distance sells.

Any discount that other brands might offer, on a project this small won't make up for the convenience of not having to deal with shipping.

Future projects will have different constraints.

[psk125]

Working with pumps can be problematic because they can sometimes "burp" or have issues delivering the desired ratio. You may not be aware of it until the mix fails to kick. Or you may see the flow stop or gap, and know it is off - but there's no way to know by how much. So do you throw out that batch and re-mix (hoping that the pump works better)? Or do you give another squirt and hope it rectifies things? Mixing up batches from different sized cans is also a problem with pumps. The big cans have big pumps that deliver more per squeeze. If you run out of the big can of hardener and only need a little bit more, how many squeezes of the small can do you use? Or do you go and buy a whole new big can of the hardener so you can continue using the big pump? The pumps aren't cheap, either. I started out using pumps because it looked simpler and cleaner. They leave a good bit of expensive liquid in the can, however, and consolidating the leftover resin and hardener into new cans is not simple or clean. I ended up building two sea kayaks using mixing cups to measure out the epoxy. K.I.S.S.