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PVA glue dried white and not clear


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Hi all

 

It's a simple question i've been ballasting , and the temp in the garage has been down to -8 ( minus 8 ) at night , i've notice that the PVA 50/50 mix is drying white and not clear .

 

After looking on the net i found some info stating PVA glue should not be used or stored outside these parameters 5*C to 30*C

 

Has anyone else had PVA dry white ? i can only think it's because of the cold temperature .

 

Shaun .

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I've had the same problem glueing coal in to about 30 wagons. At the end of the evening the train looked pretty good in my eyes and I left the shed rather satisfied. Over night it must have got rather cold although it didn't freeze in the shed. The next evening I ended up painting the coal back in to black. Perhaps I should get some fresh PVA. Roll on the warmer weather!

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Sometimes it can take PVA a couple of days to set clear, especially in cold, and damp(ish) conditions, At the beginning of last month I was putting a few baseboards together in my workshop where the temperature was hovering about the 50 degree F mark, and the PVA did take a few days to go clear. But I only have the heating on in the workshop when I'm in there, which only amounts for about a couple of hour a day. I also use PVA for coal loads, when finished I leave small jobs like that in a box on top of the central heating boiler in the kitchen, then the PVA sets, and goes clear within a couple of hours at the most.

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PVA does dry white not clear when the temperature is below 5c, as the water content does not evaporate completly at low temperatures. I have tried using a hair drier to warm up the glue when white and it works when the mix is above 50% as there is little water left to keep the glue from drying completly. The better quality PVA instructions warn of this happening if used in cold or extremly damp conditions, I by the school mix from Hobbycraft as this seem to be less prone to drying white, but the cheapest and very good PVA is the building type sold by B&Q, 5L for ??9.99 as against 0.75L for ??2.99 The only problem is I think it will go 'OFF' before I can use the rest of the 5L (about 1.5L used for a building project) as it seem to have a shelf live of about 2 years.

 

regards

 

mike g

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My Father's workshop, where I did my baseboard construction, was very cold and caused a lot of the PVA used in the woodworking to dry slightly white. As other posters have said, temperature is the factor. I haven't looked to see whether when brought into a warmer environment it becomes clear (that would involve turning my world in miniature on its side) but it was not an issue because of where it was.

 

In the past I've used a hair dryer to dry ballast. Just be careful not to apply too much heat to things that won't take it, like the plastic track bases. Also nearby windows in buildings can suffer too, as does the plastic that Ratio make the ladders on their signals from, so be careful what else is around when you do this.

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Thanks for the replies , they have really helped .

 

I tried a hair dryer to add heat to turn the PVA clear it worked on some parts but not others , i had to get the track really hot and work on a section at a time , then while the white glue was warm/hot i re-wetted it all with a fine mist spray , and heated it again , it seems to have worked .

 

The layout is now indoors ( in the house ) and i'll post back when it's had 24hr's to see if it has cured clear .

 

Thanks to all that have posted , i should have taken pictures as the white looked very bad like the whole thing had been painted with "brilliant white gloss" to the point where i thought it would have to be scrapped , now all looks well .

 

Shaun .

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