Two Recent Glue In failures; are there others?

I need to go through my basement and sell all the crap I haven't used. I think I bought like 25 of these stainless Petzl Collinox glue in bolts and didn't use a single one. Ended up using wedge anchors in that location.  

The expiry date isn´t set in stone   it´s an indication of how long the product can be stored (properly). For some brands it´s marked on by the manufacturer, for some it starts when the resin is shipped by the retailer as it is assumed they store it correctly, there´s a fair amount of slack built into the system as the manufacturers know exactly how careful the average construction worker is regarding on-site storage. Years back the shelf life was much shorter but resin development and experience has made it longer and longer. Basically if you can get it out of the tube it´s still good as it hasn´t polymerised and gone stiff or lumpy, the polyester/vinylester resins go hard without the catalyst if you leave them long enough or just heat them up. With the capsules the test is see that it is still liquid and hasn´t gone cloudy.

We´ve used (and tested resin) over ten years expired, it tends to get difficult to use and lumpy which is when you dump it, otherwise if both components flow evenly it´s good to go though not recommended unless you can actually test the results. In the boatbuilding industry if the barrels of resin start getting jelly-like they are sent back for re-manufacture and shipped back out, the resin doesn´t dry out and turn to dust, it just cures slowly into a solid block.

The common brands of glass capsules usually have a shelf life of 24 months (Hilti 18months but they no longer make glass capsules, it´s a plastic bag and you can´t see the resin). Marking the actual capsule is probably impractical, the packaging may have a use-by date on it but on my suppliers there´s isn´t one, only a lot number.

Out of curiosity to all the glue-in experts in this thread... How do temperatures outside the "storage" temps affect the compounds still in the unused tubes? For instance, what happens to the glue if stored at temperatures below the minimum listed on the tube?

There is a known failure (Turkey) that is attributed to extreme heat in a car trunk.

Ryan Sommers wrote:

Out of curiosity to all the glue-in experts in this thread... How do temperatures outside the "storage" temps affect the compounds still in the unused tubes? For instance, what happens to the glue if stored at temperatures below the minimum listed on the tube?

Heat-The resins we use are all thermosetting, that is they harden when heated. If you store resin at too high temperatures it start to polymerise (the molecular chains start bonding together) and it won´t cure properly when mixed, more normally it becomes lumpy and hard to get out of the tube/down the mixing nozzle. Resin will also begin to polymerise as it gets older, our experience is that after 5 or so years the chemical morter starts to give problems with mixing properly.

Cold- resins are technically super-cooled liquids and when it is too cold they start to freeze just like water, they form crystals and when it is cured by mixing the hardener/catalst these crystals are not available to make the molecular bond in the mixture. The crystallisation is reversible and with liquid resins in boatbuilding for example it is normal practice to just put the resin in a water-bath and heat it until the crystals disappear (the resin goes cloudy). How well this works with the resin injection systems we use I´ve no idea and I doubt anyone has tried.

Thanks for the response! Because of the fumes, I stored my spare A7 tubes outside in a sealed bucket. That said, it got down to -30F this past winter. Would you have any reservations using those tubes? I'd hate to waste them, but I'd hate more to not have bolts set properly... The tubes were all purchased last year.

Ryan

Ryan Sommers wrote:

Thanks for the response! Because of the fumes, I stored my spare A7 tubes outside in a sealed bucket. That said, it got down to -30F this past winter. Would you have any reservations using those tubes? I'd hate to waste them, but I'd hate more to not have bolts set properly... The tubes were all purchased last year.

Ryan

Freezing resin really isn´t a good idea and it often doesn´t cure properly afterwards. I´d have considerable reservations about using it to bolt routes without previously testing it, I use about 40 tubes a year for testing purposes and collect up out of date or improperly stored resin from my customers and can see whether it is still good or not by the pull-out numbers. For normal people who can´t test the resin then properly stored and in-date resin is the only way to sleep soundly at night.