I have done quite a few ducks and have always used the polytranspar degreaser but I here some talking about using gasoline,coleman fuel and some other petroleum based products. Can i just get unleaded gasoline or something else for this procedure and is the smell easily washed out? I work out of my basement so odor is a concern but even though gas prices are up their not as much as a gallon of degreaser.Thanks for any help, ( trying to save a couple bucks )
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You definately don't want to use the unleaded gas.The added products in the fuel make more potent fumes and the scent does not come out.Try using oderless mineral spirits which is available at Wal-Mart and hardware stores.Sure there are some fumes and it's not totally oderless but it is cheaper than the polytranspar degresaser.
As mentioned many times here...Gas does not degrease...It's for water displacement purposes...If you work out of your home especially, I would not use gas! Good way to lose a house!
Click that SEARCH icon to the left there (the ORANGE one) and type in Degreasers and read ALL of them. This subject has been rehashed a thousand times there. And I have to ask you a question: Is the safety of you, your family and your home worth the price of a silly assed duck having the water displaced from its feathers?
I sat in on Harry Whitehead's seminar at the Piedmont CC show. He soaks all his birds in WARM GASOLINE! He says it works great. Everyone was thinking...Just how do you warm up gasoline? (Heat it on the stove? LOL). Actually, he puts the gas in a container and sets the container in a hot pan of water. He said the smell goes away in a day or two.
I personally wouldn't recommend gasoline. But, with the proper precautions (respirator, gloves, eyeware, working outside, etc.), it should be OK. The down side to gasoline is all the additives/by-products (MTBE, other solvents/carcinogens). Besides being highly flammable, gasoline can cause long term problems (cancer, liver problems, etc.) Just not worth it to me.
Personally, I use mineral spritis or coleman fuel and I use it outside...away from my shop, with gloves on. You should not have a problem with either of these two. I have also heard of people soaking birds in acetone, but that's too expensive for me.
Guys,
But I would like to see a little more discussion on this one too. There is so much discussion on this one, if someone can bear talking about it one more time it would be great.
From the archives, it is evident that GAS is not a good idea, and it's not a degreaser. It only displaces water, and is a hazard. So I pretty much set on this one. Again the archives go on forever, and it would be great to get a little more (also current) information on it.
My question is more about other products. Shipping costs are terrible. The last job I did I really took a hard look at the shipping costs associated with the project. The costs ended up being just a hair shy of 1/4 the costs of materials. So the more products I can buy locally the better.
One of the post said that a good degreaser would need to be alkaline based. I have found some local products that seem to meet this requirement. Is this true? For example, the orange cleaner at Home Depot are alpine based, and could be used.
I know they are specific products at the supply companies, but if you can bear to talk about the other alternatives once more it would be great.
Rob
Nick,
When using any of the solvents be it unleaded gas, mineral spirits, paint thinner, acetone, ect... Common sence says go out doors for that part of the process... All of the products that I've mentioned DO WORK, some better then the others... But they all work...
And your going to hear from everyone that ALL they do is displace the water.... which is TRUE... But I want someone to explain to me just where does all that GREASE come from that is laying in the bottom of the tub after I pull a skin out... So in other words I beleive that it does do a pretty good job of removing the LOOSE left over grease that is still on the skin and feathers after washing.
Proper fleshing and then Washing in a good soap is the MOST IMPORTANT part of removing grease from any bird skin.
Ryan, Sorry to burst your bubble.... but Unleaded Gas does work and the smell does go away... I worked in a shop in Oklahoma and I have a hundred happy bird customers there to prove it.. It was a long time ago and I havn't used it sence..... TO MANY HEAD ACHES ! with the fumes..I was hired help and that is what I was told to use.. So you can say its not my first choice now adays, thank god those days are over..
I'll chime back in agree with Jim, and say that solvents are degreasers. Here's a test... Take some baby oil and rub it on your skin. Then, take some acetone, laquer thinner, min. spirits, etc. and wash your hands. Are they greasy?
I'm just thankful Jim Kimball came on to give you an expert view. I was about to question why unleaded gas WOULDN'T work if you were insistant on using a solvent based product.
To answer your specific question, yes. Protein can only be dissolved with an alkaline based product. Any solution above a 7 on the pH scale is considered alkaline, but there comes the problem. Remember, EVERYTHING you deal with is comprised of protein: skin, hair, and fat. If you use too strong an alkali product OR leave it submerged in a weaker solution too long, the alkali will dissolve ALL protein. There's a fine line on what should be used. During field testing for Epo-Grip Bloodout/Degreaser, we tested all the soaps. Dawn is the mildest of them coming in slightly above an 8 pH. That's why the container suggests warm or hot water which will allow the fats and grease to "melt" to some degree for easier removal. Eliminator from Van Dykes is a superb soap with a pH of 11. Bloodout/Degreaser s a great soap and it pushes the envelope at 12. From there, you get into industrial cleansers like Simple Green or the much harsher lye based solutions that peg out the pH meter. I would strongly suggest you avoid anything over a 12 and stick with the milder concentrations as recommended by the manufacturer. That's why I feel it's better to buy the taxidermy designed soaps as you can go on their recommendations without having your skins turn into bisque while they're soaking.
..."But I want someone to explain to me just where does all that GREASE come from that is laying in the bottom of the tub after I pull a skin out... So in other words I beleive that it does do a pretty good job of removing the LOOSE left over grease that is still on the skin and feathers after washing."
I will attempt to answer. What happens when using a solvent is that you are chasing the water out of the plumage. If a taxidermist does a careful job of wire wheeling though, and swabs the surface while wheeling with soapy water, there is no residual grease in the plumage - especially if the hide is rinced thoroughly. The bottom of your degreasing solution is simply water and dissolved fat inside the water which was not rinced thoroughly. Gasoline or mineral spirits essentially do no degreasing of the feathers at all, but acetone, carbon tet, ether, and multiple other solutions do remove fat - but at the same time remove the wax that exists on the feathers themselves that are deposited by action of the uropygial gland and preening. The sheen that can be seen by this layer of wax should not be removed in my opinion.
Concerning the residue left on feathers by gasoline (not metioned here but is in the archives contributed by George). Gasoline will leave a layer of material behind on the feathers. George pointed out that if you drip a drop of gas on a piece of bond paper and let it evaporate, there will always be stuff left. I suggest you try this - dip your bare hand in gasoline then allow it to drain. Does it feel clean afterwards? Maybe if you rolled your hand while wet in some sawdust it would be lots cleaner? Personally I use no solvent or adsorbant, and never use a drum - takes longer but that is my suggestion.
Concerning pH and cleaning. My opinion is that it is not necessary to have a high pH. The base solution may be 12, but if you put only a mild squirt into a couple gallons of solution, the pH won't be anywhere near 12. Simple dawn dishwashing soap is sufficient to wash any normal bird skin. I believe that if you use too concentrated of strong taxidermy high pH cleaner, you will get dissolving of the barbules which leads to unzipping of the barbs in the feather shafts. This happens first in the weakest feathers - white feathers usually found on the body or under-wing coverts.
I suggest you read larger portions of the archives to get opinions by many varied taxidermists. My beliefs haven't changed since 1991 when I published a couple articles in Taxidermy Today on washing bird skins.
They're just not as obvious and all you've done is smear them around on your skin. Here's a test for you. Take a drop of Coleman fuel, acetone, MEK, mineral spirits, whatever. Just one drop. Now drop that on a sheet of plain white bond paper and let it dry. Then hold it up to the light and tell me what you see. Solvents DISSOLVE, degreases break down the oil.
As a jet mechanic, we routinely washed engine parts down in solvent baths to remove loose oils and grease. Since they could hardly permeate the metals, they "washed" off easily. But THEN we had to put them in vats of boiling water to float away the solvent before we regreased or relubricated the parts. Obviously you've never worked on motors or engines. If you have a gummy carburator, you just put kerosene in it. You even run it down across the valves and into the lifters to clean out the gunk. But you'll damned sure clean that off before you light the fire and roll tires. If you don't the kerosene will erode all the machined parts of your engine. To "tune" a handgun, often times kerosene is used in a bucket where the trigger is pulled repeatedly. Then it is dismantled and cleaned to stop the "wear in" of the sear and trigger. There's a HUGE difference between a solvent and a degreaser.
Look at Bruce Rittel's Safety Acid. Put in ONE HALF of one fluid ounce of acid in one gallon of water and your pH will be 1.0. And if you put 2 cups of acid in that same gallon of water, it too will register 1.0.But if you put your pH paper into the bottle of undiluted acid, guess what the pH is?
I have used gasoline, but stopped because the smell does not go away as fast it may stick around for a day. with lacquer thinner ect the smell disapates much faster more like an hour.
Thanks for the comments. I really appreciate you all taking the time to respond.
Thanks
Well, perhaps the Cliff Notes version of pH.
An acid is a solution which has a free active hydrogen ion [H+] in the number of 6.023x10 to the 23rd molecules of [H+] per molecular weight (Avogadros' number) . Reagent grade Hydrochloric acid or Sulfuric acid if 99.9% pure would have that many free ions at their molecular weight. Pure acid has a pH of Zero.
When you start diluting the acids, you calculate the number of moles per dissolved ions in solution. HCL has a molecular weight of H=1 gram per mole and CL= 17 grams, so the molecular weight of the chemical is 18 grams. Thus 18 grams of concentrated HCL dissolved in a solution of 1 liter distilled water creates a pH of one. Sulfuric acid at H2SO4 with a molecular weight of 49 grams per mole ( two hydrogen ions=2 grams, S=16 grams, and four oxygen at 8 grams each) would require 49 grams of acid dissolved in one liter of water to create a pH of 1. HCL is a more concentrated acid, as it takes only 18 grams to "acidify" distilled water.
pH is on a scale of 10 to one for each level. If you take 18 grams of HCL the pH is one. If however you only take 1.8 grams the pH will be two. Dissolving only 0.18 grams to make a solution totalling 1 liter solution should create a pH of 3.0.
I personally don't know the concentration of Safety Acid, but one teaspoon and two cups into a gallon of water do not add up to the same pH. Conversely, a ten percent solution of dawn detergent and a 1 percent solution will also not result in the same pH.
The major problem with people creating their own tanning solutions is in what the normal tap water would be in their area. Rainwater in theory (since it is undergoing the distillation process) should have a neutral pH, but because of Carbon dioxide and other materials in the atmosphere that are dissolved in the rain water, the pH is often at 5, and acid rain can be as far down as the 3.0 range just downwind of a power plant. Conversely, in a limestone area, well water can be at 8 or 9. If you think that only 1.8 grams of HCL is required to change pH a level of one, when you are in a neutral solution, when it is on the basic side of the curve, much more acid is required. If your solution to tan with, has a pH of 9, then you would need to use a lot of acid just to bring the solution to a pH of neutral before you measured the amount of acid for the pickle. Taxidermists seem to universally use paper PH test strips that are not that accurate. A Ph meter, or if you did some testing, various indicators could give better readings - Thymol blue, Methyl yellow, Methyl orange,Phenolphthalein alizarin yellow, etc..
Well I see the Taxidermologist has a little chemistry background! Riddle me this. What do you get when you mix equal parts of Sodium Borohydride (18%) and Hydrogen peroxide (35%)? I'm kidding of course! Please don't try this at home to find out!