What goes wrong

It dried out, or it separated

On this page11

The sealant skinned It separated and was poured anyway Which needs headspace to fix The ammonia reached the aluminium The lube was in PET and the carrier was a solvent The spout clogged The decant was unlabelled The chalk got damp The bolts rusted in the jar Test it the way it will live References

Sealant fails in the bottle more often than in the tyre.

The sealant skinned

Latex meets air and sets. A half-used bottle with a poor liner is a bottle of rubber by the next season, and nothing recovers it.

It separated and was poured anyway

The particulate settles. Poured without shaking, the first half is thin liquid and the second half is sludge, and neither seals properly.

Which needs headspace to fix

A bottle filled to the shoulder cannot be shaken. The container has to be bought larger than the fill for a product that separates.

The ammonia reached the aluminium

Spilled sealant left on a rim or a valve stem. A real property of the chemistry, not a labeling requirement, and the fix is wiping it off rather than reading a label.

The lube was in PET and the carrier was a solvent

Clouding, softening or splitting. 174 HDPE and 20 glass containers here are the tolerant end and 147 PET are not.

The spout clogged

A wax-based lube in a fine applicator, left in a cold shed. The first squeeze pushes a plug out somewhere unintended.

The decant was unlabelled

A small bottle of something in a saddlebag with nothing on it. The shop consumables property covers the labelling duty for moving a regulated liquid into another container.

The chalk got damp

Magnesium carbonate takes up moisture and cakes. A sealed container between sessions, and 11 liners on this shelf are what does it.

The bolts rusted in the jar

A damp workshop and an unlined cap. Small steel fasteners are the thing in this group most sensitive to a closure that breathes.

Test it the way it will live

Filled, sealed, in a cold shed through a winter, shaken, opened with cold hands. Every failure here appears in that and none on the day you fill it.

References

The Davis Pack Supply catalog, measured 19 October 2026. The cycling and climbing shelf is 972 rows: 383 containers and 589 closures. 5 mL to 2,000 mL with a median of 237; 17 containers at 15 mL or under, 25 at 30 or under, 77 at 60 or under, 132 at 120 or under. 174 HDPE, 147 PET, 42 PP, 20 glass. 188 bottles, 173 jars, 17 tubs and pails, 3 jugs, 2 tubes. 137 white, 72 clear, 69 natural, 37 black, 33 amber. Closures: 381 continuous thread, 39 child resistant, 36 disc top, 26 dome lids, 26 spouted, 19 flip top, 13 spice caps, 11 liners and sealing discs, 9 phenolic.

The archetype behind this shelf is store-liquid-decant: 15 to 120 mL, narrow mouth, flip top or disc top or lotion pump or fine mist, PET and HDPE, cold fill, thin, aqueous, poured, with "travel decant, leakproof under pressure change is the whole requirement" as its stated reason. It describes the two wet leaves at a travel scale, and the shelf is workshop sized: median 237 mL against a 120 mL ceiling.

Written from 16 CFR 1500.121 and 1500.14, and from the catalog as it stood on 19 October 2026. Whether a given lubricant or sealant is a hazardous substance under the Act is the formulator's determination, not ours. No point-size conversions appear here because the regulation specifies fractional inches as the height of a capital letter. Climbing area rules on chalk are set by land managers and vary site by site.