Tippex [original version]

MichaelG.

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Roy beat me to it.

If I recall correctly, the original version is in an all white bottle, and is thinned with something of which Nanny disapproves.

I will check later.

MichaelG.

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Edit: __ Here’s a proper ‘grown-up’ paper about the safety implications

https://www.inchem.org/documents/ukpids/ukpids/ukpid29.htm

Original is white bottle with red writing and eco friendly is white bottle with (yes you guessed) green writing. Original can be thinned with cellulose thinners to make it easier to apply and get finer lines.

Carbon Tetrachloride wasn’t that the stuff in the old brass fire extinguishes ? Remember pulling them off the wall to ‘degrease’ the odd job.

H

Carbon Tetrachloride is carcinogenic.

regards Martin

Tipp-Ex (Rapid) to quote the label correctly, is in a white bottle with blue and red ornamentation, white and black print, three warning diamonds and doom-laden tiny print…. The label does not specify the solvent beyond “hydrocarbons”, a description so broad it covers us as well as Tipp-Ex, but it won’t be carbon tetrachloride.

… and is indeed still available.

I bought a bottle only yesterday, its first use being to correct a mistake in a questionnaire.

I survived.

Once opened, materials like this are best re-closed securely and kept at the back of the ‘fridge to minimise solvent loss.

On 15 April 2024 at 11:24 Engine Builder Said:

I have always used Tipex but latley have used acrylic paint with equal good results.

I think Engine Builder has the answer there.  White acrylic paint consists of water, various organic compounds, and titanium dioxide.  So, a bit like Tippex. With the application of heat the water will boil off, the organic compounds will burn off, leaving the titanium dioxide as a solid layer ( it will melt at about 1,800 C).

Russell

On 16 April 2024 at 09:03 Bo’sun Said:

Thanks for the tips and advice.  A colleague has just mentioned that Graphite (soft B grade pencil) will also resist Silver Solder.

If a Graphite pencil is used, best to go softer than B, perhaps 4B.   They’re readily available in Art Shops and on the web,

Almost anything that gets between the metal and the silver solder will do.   It has to be heatproof, a bit sticky, and either harmless on the thread or not too difficult to remove.  Ideally it should be quick drying.

Tipp-ex and other correcting fluids are paints containing a finely powdered inert mineral with a dash of glue, and a solvent.   Rapid drying fluids contain a light organic solvent such as Trike, but these are all somewhat dangerous.   Ordinary Tipp-ex is water-based, which works well enough but takes a lot longer to dry.

The inert material in Tippex is probably Titanium Oxide, chosen because it resists yellowing.  Chalk and many other common paint pigments would do the job, suggesting that any emulsion paint would do, but these come in big cans, not handy little bottles with a brush.

Oil Paint isn’t a good idea because it burns messily.   But I very much like Engine Builders’ Acrylic Paint suggestion,  cheap, non-toxic, and available in convenient sizes.

The number of posts inveighing against the Nanny State and optimistically believing traditional remedies work better than modern rubbish suggests a business opportunity.  My book ‘Duffer’s Receipts for Model Engineers Wishing to Stuff up Nanny by Winning a Darwin Award’ will be a best seller.   It will suggest potions optimised to do a good job at maximum risk to the operator, his family, property, and the environment, plus many risk multipliers.   Smoking, ideally a coarse tobacco with cocaine sprinkled in it, will be compulsory.   Protective Personal Equipment is forbidden unless it happens to be 60 years old and made of Asbestos.  An unshielded home-made x-ray machine will be used to test welds, and there will be a boiler pressure tester based on gunpowder, unless a more powerful explosive is available!   As concentrated Sulphuric Acid is cowardly, my pickle will be a hot mix of Oleum and Fuming Nitric Acid.   Chaps will be able to choose organic solvents to achieve their preferred harm:  they all fry the brain, but Model Engineers may prefer cancer to damaging their reproductive system.  The book will list the benefits of all the most hazardous industrial solvents, but not worry heroes by mentioning any poisonous, explosive, narcotic, carcinogenic or flesh dissolving characteristics.   The ideal workshop isn’t ventilated, will be heated with a coke burner, and all electrical equipment will be connected by crocodile clips to an uninsulated bus dangling from the ceiling.  Model Engineers will be advised that safety earths are more trouble than they are worth, and that circuit breakers should be replaced by fuses, and fuses by paper-clips!    Degreasing will be done by boiling in a saucepan full of Leaded Petrol on a gas ring.   Each workshop session will start with a dose of self-inflicted horse-play, such as rupturing one’s own lower bowel by applying an air-hose per-rectum.     A too small Carbon Tetrachloride fire extinguisher will be available, but that won’t matter, because my book recommends using Carbon Tet stolen from the extinguisher as a degreaser, so it will be empty when needed in an emergency…

Dave

I’ve always found jewellers rouge to be effective, mixed with a little washing up liquid.

Generally washes off well afterwards, but might need a spell in a ultrasonic cleaner, before you put it in the pickle.

You forgot to leave the car idling outside the door or start up the old generator inside.