dark tubes without paint

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JohnU

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Jan 31, 2008
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Ottawa, Illinois
I stumbled onto this a couple years back by mistake but it finally serves a purpose. Ive been painting my brass tubes when casting and glueing up acrylics, but have had a few problems with paint rubbing off when inserting into the drilled hole and leaving brass shine in the blank. I remembered back when I was trying to clean out a piece of brass that had gotten cloggeds, with some liquid drano. The result was dark brass. I just finished a bucket of tubes and thought i would post the before and after. I sand and rough up the tubes first and then stand them up on end in the bottom of a small bucket. I pour in liquid drano just over the top of the tubes and let sit over night. The next day I rinse and dry and they're ready to go. One thing, drano will bubble up and out of the bucket if its not very tall, so put down a drop cloth.
 

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rherrell

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Aug 22, 2006
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Pilot Mountain, NC
Mike (MLK Woodworking) sells a product called Brass Ager that works in 5 minutes and is not as caustic as Drano. I believe the main ingridient is muriatic acid which I used to use as soldering flux. It won't burn you and you just rinse it off with water if you get any on you.
 

Sylvanite

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Jul 18, 2006
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Hillsborough, North Carolina, USA.
"Muriatic acid" is just another name for hydrochloric acid. Drano used to be sodium hydroxide, but I don't know what they put in it now. Both hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide solutions can be very nasty to handle if the concentration is high enough. Even at a low concentration, I wouldn't want to get any in my eyes.

Both, however, are water soluable. Give the tubes (and your hands) a thorough rinsing afterwards and you should be fine.

Regards,
Eric
 

JohnU

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Jan 31, 2008
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Ottawa, Illinois
I'll have to check on the brass ager and blackit for next time. Drano works well but doesnt last as long as the other stuff (im guessing). thanks
 

Brandon25

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Jul 17, 2008
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Louisville, KY, USA.
"Drano used to be sodium hydroxide, but I don't know what they put in it now.
Regards,
Eric

I did a chemistry experiment in school back in 1999. Drain opener at that time contained sodium hypochlorite and caustic soda. That's what it said the active ingredients were. I spilled some on my sock without realizing it, and twenty minutes later I finally stopped ignoring the odd feeling, only to find a chemical burn on my ankle. However, if you dont let it sit on your skin, it's not gonna kill ya. I have no idea if something in the glue might react with it if you didn't wash it off though, or how it reacts with the brass. I know that if it smokes, that ain't good.

Hence, draino+aluminum=heat and O3(poisonous oxygen gas). That's all a draino bomb is. The gas that the aluminum foil and draino produce is less dense than liquid or solids, so it needs more space than the plastic bottle will allow. The biproduct of heat makes the plastic bottle soft, so the gas can expand and distort the bottle, but soon enough the gas expands too fast and ruptures the bottle.

I had a cool chemistry teacher. :biggrin:
 
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