The foundry supply shop I get all my metal, sand and equipment told me on Friday that petrobond 2 has been discontinued and the manufacturer (Halliburton?) is going back to petrobond 1 Petrobond 2 is way easier to mix, use and reuse, P1 needs binder, catalyst and oil. The catalyst is really hard to find and needs to be mixed back in every time you mull the used sand. This stuff is REALLY expensive for a 50 lb bag but thinking I might just suck it up and get another bag of the clay to have it for the rest of my life.
K-bond is also an option. Mixing up K-Bond Sand (Similar to Petrobond) | The Home Foundry Best, Kelly
I think that is basically petrobond 1 where the methanol acts like the catalyst. It is just so nice to not have to even think about needed that for the sand to get into that clay consistency by just running it in the mulling machine for 10-15 min. I cant really switch from p2, I have like 2 garbage cans full of it and mixing it with another kind of sand would probably ruin it.
https://www.slideshare.net/FoundryJoe/petro-bond-foundry-sand-brochure Link to a brochure for P1 and P2 with mixing instructions and troubleshooting. I would like to try K-Bond sometime with the amorphous Polybutene versus the smokeless synthetic 2-cycle as the 'oil' component.
I think this is covered in the linked K-bond thread, but you can use high percentage isopropyl alcohol or methyl hydrate if you can't find propylene glycol (the active ingredient in the brand name petrobond catalyst)... Is anyone else here using Petrobond 2? As far as I know the oil bonded sand users here are just about exclusively using Petrobond 1. I'd make a big pile of K-bond if I could get the organoclay binder or even petrobond powder up here in Ontario (where the supplier only sells premulled petrobond...) Jeff
if your supplier is going back to p-1 they will need to carry the catalyst the original literature DOES NOT indicate additional catalyst being needed to remull https://www.slideshare.net/FoundryJoe/petro-bond-foundry-sand-brochure if you think it does 90% rubbing alchol works fine at the hobbyist level Just keep your Piddies out of the Muller V/r HT1
