One of my favorite aluminium rollers for wetting out fabric is now almost full of cured epoxy. What can I soak it in for a few days to dissolve the epoxy? I seem to recall that acetone is only effective on uncured epoxy. Any cleaning ideas are welcome.
heh… disolving epoxy, thankfully that doesn’t work.
Sadly for your roller. Razor blades, chisels, sand paper is where I’d start.
If nothing else take this as a good lesson to clean up before you walk away from the layup. I hate ruining scissors this way. I also have a pair of scissors that I freekoted to prevent resin from sticking. I would do this with the roller you use to keep that from hapening.
take a blow torch and burn off the resin.
Soak in a covered acetone pail overnight (must be covered to prevent evaporation). Agitate every few hours.
Then switch to a new pail with clean acetone and do the same.
Then a fine wire brush with a power/air tool will take all the cured epoxy out pretty easily and quickly.
For the future, when you’re done with the roller, use the same acetone cleaning schedule. Agitate in “dirty” acetone pail for a minute or two, then agitate in “clean” acetone pail for a minute or two directly after. After a week or two, discard the dirty acetone, switch the clean acetone to the dirty acetone pail, and add new clean acetone. Spending a few minutes doing this after layup keeps my rollers clean and problem free.
ike Winters suggested use a blow torch to burn off the resin, the heat will also get rid of any epoxy that is preventing the roller for rolling. Once burnt a wire brush removes the remains. Hint - do this outside.
Thanks for all the replies. I will try them and go with the one that is most suitable. I also asked the manufacturer of my epoxy. They said Methylene Chloride will soften dried epoxy, enough that a wire brush would remove the gel, but I have used MC before, years ago, and it is nasty and very hazardous, and I’d like to stay away from using it. I had been trying to clean it after each use, but inevitably, some resin remains, and it builds up fast.
Aircraft paint stripper has the chemical Methylene Chloride, I believe. I use that whenever I want to remove epoxy that dripped on things.
Fire is the answer. Having a acetone bucket to throw your rollers in after each job makes them very easy to clean the next time you want to use them.
If you have access to a lathe-( which is what makes the rollers), it will clean the barrels perfectly too.
Its always best to have a bucket of acetone with the lid holding the handle and several rollers to cycle freshly into a project.
But you’ll still need to clean the rollers before leaving the shop to keep work at a minimum later on.
I made a ‘rake’ or ‘comb’ that fits my roller threads so I can scape them as I go. Its still messy to some extent but it all cleans up more and more with each easy step.
Try using styrene monomer as a solvent for cured epoxy.
Or Nitromors