# Homebrew Layout Fluid Experiments



## graham-xrf (Mar 28, 2021)

The motivation is to find some cheap and cheerful reasonable substitute for Dykem and similar that just cannot be had in less well served places.
I do like Dykem, but a whiff of the organic solvents makes my chest wheeze up somewhat more readily than alcohols.
The varnish layer left from dried Dykem is some kind of cellulose.  I chose to try out the "traditional" natural shellac varnish, as might be used in French polish.
The rest of what is in there can be any alcohol solvent. I avoid the shatteringly expensive "rectified alcohol", which is booze - if you dilute it.

Even gasoline petrol works, if you can stand the smell. I went for IPA. IsoPropyl Alcohol, the main ingredient of rubbing alcohol, or de-natured alcohol, or methylated spirits. IPA is clean, and does not smell awful. The colors dye was by raiding a red ball-point pen that I know I did not buy.
It got to look a bit "chemistry lab" around me. Be warned to use gloves, and take care not to let even the least smear of dye get loose. Even the attempt to clean it up then spreads to all you touch afterwards, and all your paper stuff starts going pink. The most fraught moment is when you get a grip on the metal ball-point tip with the little pliers. Try and ease it out with rotations, no sudden moves or jerks from direct pulls.



	

		
			
		

		
	
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First thing is, the shellac flakes do not dissolve in seconds. They settle into the bottom of the container, and need to be stirred up of shook regularly.
My 100g of blonde flakes cost about £6.50 . Left to itself, they might dissolve in about 8 hours, but you can massively speed things up if you crush them up. They splatter all over the place. One individual uses a small coffee grinder. Maybe a mortar & pestle would be good, but I settled for 2 batches of 500mg each, crushed up a bit between two spoons. Things went a whole lot better when I pounded them with the end of a 10mm drill bit while they were confined to a detergent bottle cap.
Warm it up a bit, and work it, and you can get it down to about half an hour. It's much easier to just leave it to itself for a while.

I had a little try with using aftermarket inkjet refill ink. The colours one can get are beautiful, but too thin and not concentrated enough. They are water-based, which does mix with the alcohol, but extends the drying time. Possibly if one drove off some of the water by cooking it a bit, the dye would concentrate, just like salt in chilli sauce.



	

		
			
		

		
	
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*Drying Time*
Dykem "Steel Red" takes 4 minutes & 20 seconds to just about dry. The shellac 500mg in about 6mL of IPA took very nearly the same. Within some few seconds.

*Comparing..*
What I show here is not the final mix. I was still making a mess. I learned not to mix gel-pen dye with traditional ball-point ink. It caused little tiny lumps to separate, and the fluid in it messed up the spreading effect so that as it dried, it seemed to have a "thicker" accumulation at the ink layer edge. The tiniest touch of a little detergent completely changes things, but it was how I decided I was seeing a surface tension effect. If one stays with the pure IPA and shellac, then it becomes hard to tell the difference between Dykem and the homebrew concoction. I first tried it on the flea-market V-block that is now promised some respite from rusting away.
This is where I compared the drying times. The durability to handling, and the way it wipes off with alcohol seem the same.



	

		
			
		

		
	
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I also tried it out on clean aluminium, and added some scribe lines. The amount of ink in a ball-point pen is surprisingly little. A 110mm plastic tube has inner diameter 1.5mm, and that would be 0.185mL, then take off some because the tube always has an empty bit at the end. It will have a few drops - maybe 4 or 5.
One tip is not to blow the ink out with air. Things go much better if you push it out with alcohol So one drop of ball-point pen ink stains up the fluid you see in the pictures, which by the time they were spread, had used about 15mL to 20mL of alcohol. I am sure one could use other dyes.



	

		
			
		

		
	
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The pictures are by no means the final try. They are of the work-in-progress failed messed up tries, but already, we obviously have a viable low cost and reasonable alternative. If one can get hold of some shellac, then as I said to @Suzuki4evr, the rest of it could be one abandoned ball-point and if lacking some IPA, then maybe a little gasoline stolen from the girlfriend's motor cycle. Hardware store methylated spirits or de-natured alcohol will do.

There can, of course, be refinements, but already, it's kinda working!


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## silverhawk (Mar 28, 2021)

Great write up!

joe


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## TIM-RANEY (Mar 28, 2021)

Great experiments, Graham! Since my shop is in an attached garage, I must be cautious on what solvents I use; especially since the gas water heater is in the corner. And Dykem does smell a bit (I use it sparingly). I also use "Sharpie" blue "magnum" permanent markers. I do not know what solvent they use, but the odor is not very strong. A few swipes on a work-piece is all it takes; it dries fast too. Though it is not as durable as Dykem. RIT dye added to alcohol + shellac might be a good option. Have not tried it though.


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## aliva (Mar 28, 2021)

What about inkjet printer ink?


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## TIM-RANEY (Mar 28, 2021)

Graham said he tried inkjet printer ink....too thin and was water soluble; longer drying time.


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## graham-xrf (Mar 28, 2021)

aliva said:


> What about inkjet printer ink?


The fourth picture is of the inkjet printer ink. It does work, because it does mix into alcohol, and you get great colours. The red is from one drop of magenta with one drop of yellow. Very strange how the yellow looks near orange in the bottle, but a drop on paper comes out yellow. This way of getting colours is subtractive, as with all paints, is the opposite way around to mixing colours of light.

The effect of the two drops in about 4mL of shellac solution is the colour is thin and more transparent. Adding enough drops to make it more intense is also adding enough water to make the drying time more like wet water. You can get faster drying times with more volatile solvents. It would work with lighter fluid, or ether, or any one of many quite nasty and intoxicating stuffs.

To some degree, the gel-pen ink, if not simply augmented with traditional ball pen ink, is also a candidate, but I found it could sort of separate and leave a "grainy" looking surface. One drop of traditional ball-point ink, red, actually comes out looking nearly black, but as it hits the alcohol, it is full-on concentrated red.

Injet printer ink should be available the world over, but of course, if taken from inkjet printer cartridges, means you are paying for the weight of ink more than the actual price of gold! Inkjet printers are software driven to waste ink into a sponge at every start-up, and using refill bottles like those in the picture is discouraged. My HP complains the cartridge is not kosher, but I ignore it, and I refill the cartrige from my eBay bottles.

If you are in a place like (say) Springbok South Africa, or Swakopmund (Namibia), or Lusaka (Zambia), eBay ink is not there for you, but ball-point pens definitely are!


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## thomas s (Mar 28, 2021)

Thanks great write up.


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## graham-xrf (Mar 28, 2021)

TIM-RANEY said:


> Great experiments, Graham! Since my shop is in an attached garage, I must be cautious on what solvents I use; especially since the gas water heater is in the corner. And Dykem does smell a bit (I use it sparingly). I also use "Sharpie" blue "magnum" permanent markers. I do not know what solvent they use, but the odor is not very strong. A few swipes on a work-piece is all it takes; it dries fast too. Though it is not as durable as Dykem. RIT dye added to alcohol + shellac might be a good option. Have not tried it though.


Sorry - I am just a bit lost on some things, so do tell what is "RIT" dye.
Regarding the substances, I think shellac is harmless. IPA is not (harmless), but I do happen to be the guy who tried drinking it for real! [Ref: 1]

*Dykem* has the following..
Ethanol             (64-17-5)     That is like the active ingredient in Jim Bean. We know what it does!

Butyl Acetate   (123-86-4)    It's a high boiling point nail polish solvent, also found in fruit, candy, ice cream, etc.

Butanol            (71-36-3)      Like IPA with an extra carbon, it's biofuel for cars, paint thinner and used in brake fluid.
                                             Highly alcoholic aroma for perfumes, is also a nervous system depressant.

Nitrocellulose (9004-70-0)  Highly flammable explosive gun cotton, it is the cellulose film lacquer deposited from the solvents.

Isopropanol     (67-63-0)      IPA - the three carbon alcohol   I use it too!

Propyl acetate (109-60-4)   Another ester solvent with a sweet smell used in flavours - probably not harmful in small amounts.

I don't know what the code numbers in brackets mean. Maybe one of our experts in chemistry can tell us. Even I dozed off in chem lectures, I don't think they mentioned these.

[1] _Food and drink in the work area! (IPA + ethanol + methanol)!_


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## silverhawk (Mar 28, 2021)

That three-number code is called the CAS number.  It is only an identification number assigned by the Chemical Abstract Service, a division of the American Chemical Society.  A good analogy is to think of it like an IEEE number for any of your engineering standards.


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## graham-xrf (Mar 28, 2021)

TIM-RANEY said:


> Great experiments, Graham! Since my shop is in an attached garage, I must be cautious on what solvents I use; especially since the gas water heater is in the corner. And Dykem does smell a bit (I use it sparingly). I also use "Sharpie" blue "magnum" permanent markers. I do not know what solvent they use, but the odor is not very strong. A few swipes on a work-piece is all it takes; it dries fast too. Though it is not as durable as Dykem. RIT dye added to alcohol + shellac might be a good option. Have not tried it though.


Maybe all one needs to to is use the Sharpie, or one of those wide-bit markers, then give it a very light "one-pass" spray of clear lacquer from a can you find among the rattle-can paint sprays on automotive section stands. Oddly, the "clear" lacquer never seems to have a "rattle thingy". The idea is just to give the Sharpie layer a thin covering support so it does not immediately rub off on your hands and clothes, or disappear under coolant.

Getting the layer off afterwards might not be as easy as a wipe with IPA, but it might yield to WD40. It's worth a try!


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## hman (Mar 28, 2021)

RIT dye is a commonly available (in the US) dyestuff, generally meant to be used in a clothes washing machine.  It's available in a wide variety of colors.  








						Rit Fabric Dye
					

Color for your clothing, décor, crafts & more. Thousands of colors to choose from. Non-toxic. Made in the USA for over 100 years.




					www.ritdye.com
				




As for IPA - I use it all the time.  It's my "go to" solvent and cleaning agent.  A LOT less toxic or irritating than mineral spirits, acetone, lacquer thinner, methanol, etc.


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## graham-xrf (Mar 29, 2021)

hman said:


> RIT dye is a commonly available (in the US) dyestuff, generally meant to be used in a clothes washing machine.  It's available in a wide variety of colors.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks for the enlightenment re: "RIT".
So it's a brand 
I did not plan on exploring much more, because I do have some Dykem, and here, the main aim was to establish a cheap and workable alternative.

The fabric dye I happen have around is black, to alter the nearly white corn colour socks Xmas present. I am pretty sure that most any fabric dye will just work. The folk who get into anodizing do say one should use the "better" type for their lovely colour surfaces, so I guess what is fabric dye can vary some.  Given the coverage, I think it likely you need only purchase it once, for a lifetime supply of fluid.

The same might be true of the shellac. I was playing with half a gram each, and the batch as delivered was 105grams.
A loose guess on how much I ended up with gets up to it being enough for most of a litre of fluid. It depends how much you need if you only paint where you need to mark. Some folk on HM have been using the same can of fluid for years!

There is a variant of ink recipe I have come across is to add some borax. Folk who do brazing may have some handy as borax flux.
That ink recipe is predominantly water based, using about 37.5% alcohol (150 of alcohol with 250 of water, 20 of shellac, 35 of borax, + dye).
I would try to not use water at all. If I get a chance, I might try it, but I am pretty sure most HM folk can get where they need to with what we now know.


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## Suzuki4evr (Mar 29, 2021)

Thanks for that very well explained experiment. I have yet to do mine.


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## aliva (Mar 29, 2021)

Found this on a quick google search
*According to this file (Duke University PDF [1], or Google's HTML cache [2]) the ingredients of Sharpie markers are as follows:*


Dyes.
Propyl alcohol (N-Propanol), 200-250 PPM.
Butyl alcohol (N-Butanol), 50-100 PPM.
Diacetone alcohol (4-Hydroxy-4-Methyl-2-Pentanone), 50 PPM.


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## graham-xrf (Mar 29, 2021)

aliva said:


> Found this on a quick google search
> *According to this file (Duke University PDF [1], or Google's HTML cache [2]) the ingredients of Sharpie markers are as follows:*
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks very much - I found some links, but their "PPM" is not making sense to me.
https://askinglot.com/what-is-sharpie-ink-made-of

These solvents are fast evaporating very volatile alcohol hydrocarbons that are likely to give you a headache or maybe trigger asthmatic-like lung tissue reaction (wheezing) if you breath the fumes, or become sensitized to breathing fumes. In normal use, Sharpies are unlikely to affect anyone very much. The proportion of dyes will be tiny.

The inks are probably actual solution colours, rather than fine ground particulates, because they can infuse into materials and stain them permanently. For me, PPM means "parts per million". So when it says 200-250 PPM, I ask, "parts per million of what"?

I think whoever posted to Askinglot, and also findanyanswer.com fumbled on the units.


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## aliva (Mar 29, 2021)

I would assume  this is the ingredient, in red

*Propyl alcohol (N-Propanol)*, 200-250 PPM.
*Butyl alcohol (N-Butanol)*, 50-100 PPM.
*Diacetone alcohol (4-Hydroxy-4-Methyl-2-Pentanone*), 50 PPM.
Possibly  start with a known quantity of dye and add the ppm amount of each ingredient. Some experimentation is going to be needed.


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## graham-xrf (Mar 29, 2021)

aliva said:


> I would assume  this is the ingredient, in red
> 
> *Propyl alcohol (N-Propanol)*, 200-250 PPM.
> *Butyl alcohol (N-Butanol)*, 50-100 PPM.
> *Diacetone alcohol (4-Hydroxy-4-Methyl-2-Pentanone*), 50 PPM.


Yes - that is right.
N-Propanol can be 1-propanol, or 2-propanol. The stuff I used is 2-propanol, also called "IPA" or "Iso-Propyl Alcohol. "1" and "2" versions have identical chemical formulas. The difference is physical. It is always 3-carbon molecule. 1-propanol has the OH attached to a carbon on the end, and 2-propanol has the OH attached to the middle carbon. The OH is what makes these things alcohols. These isomers are near identical in what they do.

I chose IPA, or 2-propanol if you like, because you can get it 99.5% or greater purity at low cost.
Rubbing alcohol is a mix of IPA with a proportion of ethanol, methanol, and water.

My issue is the meaning of "PPM" in this context. That is not a quantity, nor even a recipe proportion! It is a concentration in parts per milliion. These are usually cited as hazard or health limit concentrations one might be exposed to. It makes no sense PPM in the context of what is in a Sharpie. The substances are named OK, but PPM? 

For me, 250PPM means the amount of substance parts per million is 250/1million as a fraction = 0.00025 or 0.025%
That is meaningless in the context of using (say) a half a litre of alcohol solvent to get up a bottle of marking fluid, nor describing a Sharpie.

Does one suppose that 200-250PPM is the amount of propanol alcohol proportion of the mass of a plastic Sharpie pen including the top?


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## Eddyde (Mar 29, 2021)

Aniline dyes are ubiquitous in industry. They are available either water or alcohol soluble, of course the latter is what you want.


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## graham-xrf (Mar 29, 2021)

Eddyde said:


> Aniline dyes are ubiquitous in industry. They are available either water or alcohol soluble, of course the latter is what you want.


Thanks Ed.
I had guessed that there may be some which might dissolve into only water, or alcohol, in an exclusive way.
I found that of the few I have tried, if they will dissolve into water, they will also dissolve in alcohol, but not always the other way around.
The advice with powder fabric dyes is to mix them into water first, then add that to the alcohol. If (when) I try fabric dye, I will first try going direct into the alcohol.

Part of the aim in getting into putting dye into shellac was to find a reasonable fluid using the cheapest most available ingredients for one of our colleagues who lives in Africa, where availability of stuff like this can be somewhat difficult, hit & miss, or unreasonably expensive. Raiding traditional ball-point pens is completely in keeping with the aim.

I don't know what the thick, concentrated goop used in ball-points actually is, but if you get a speck of it on paper, and wet it with alcohol from one side, it separates into the constituent colours i.e.  "paper chromatography". They may be aniline dyes. They certainly are very concentrated.


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## homebrewed (Mar 30, 2021)

Be careful with some of these organic solvents!  I bought 500ml of  butanol for a completely different project and later learned that it can react with oxygen to form a peroxide.  Said peroxide has been known, under some circumstances, to explode.  I freaked out and -- very carefully -- proceeded to turn it into water and CO2 using a process known as "combustion".  Outside, a long way from anything that could be damaged by an explosion.  No harm done, but I learned to research potential solvents before buying them.  I knew about the hazards of diethyl ether but butanol....not at the time.  I mean, it's an alcohol so what could POSSIBLY go wrong??? 

There are a number of solvents that can form peroxides so it's definitely something to keep in mind!;

I bought the stuff from Amazon (or maybe ebay), no hazmat fee, no caveats, so you've got to do your homework before getting chemicals you're not all that familiar with.

On a slightly different note, polystyrene foam readily dissolves in a number of solvents.  It's mostly gas so easy to get a thin "varnish" blend.  Acetone might work, or perhaps MEK or ethyl acetate.  Add some dye and you might have a ready-made markup ink.


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## hman (Mar 30, 2021)

MEK is pretty nasty stuff, probably best avoided.

Peroxide hazards associated with butanol are news to me.  What kind of btanol ... n-butanol (1-butanol), isobutanol (2-butanol) or t-butanol (tertiary butanol) was supposed to form the peroxides?

Back in grad school, a lab were I worked used t-butanol to safely (ie, SLOWly) react leftover potassium and rubidium for disposal.  "Smaller" alcohols would have reacted explosively with such alkali metals.


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## TIM-RANEY (Mar 30, 2021)

graham-xrf said:


> Sorry - I am just a bit lost on some things, so do tell what is "RIT" dye.
> Regarding the substances, I think shellac is harmless. IPA is not (harmless), but I do happen to be the guy who tried drinking it for real! [Ref: 1]
> 
> *Dykem* has the following..
> ...


Graham: "Rit" is a brand of fabric dye available in the US. Here, you can buy it at grocery stores, Walmart, etc. Arts and crafts stores have it too. Besides its use in dying fabrics, woodworkers use it for home brew wood dyes. It is available online too.


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## homebrewed (Mar 30, 2021)

hman said:


> MEK is pretty nasty stuff, probably best avoided.
> 
> Peroxide hazards associated with butanol are news to me.  What kind of btanol ... n-butanol (1-butanol), isobutanol (2-butanol) or t-butanol (tertiary butanol) was supposed to form the peroxides?
> 
> Back in grad school, a lab were I worked used t-butanol to safely (ie, SLOWly) react leftover potassium and rubidium for disposal.  "Smaller" alcohols would have reacted explosively with such alkali metals.


2-butanol can be dangerous under some circumstances according to this.  The greatest risk of explosion is when it is distilled, presumably to purify it.  If not destroyed beforehand, the peroxide concentration goes up until the distillation unit goes bang.

I haven't seen any issues regarding other isomers.


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## hman (Mar 30, 2021)

WOW!  Thanks.  As I've often said, majoring in chemistry has taught me to stay away from chemicals!


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## homebrewed (Mar 31, 2021)

hman said:


> WOW!  Thanks.  As I've often said, majoring in chemistry has taught me to stay away from chemicals!


I hear you there!  Near the start of my retirement I worked on developing procedures to de-layer integrated circuits using a process called CMP, chemo-mechanical polishing.  Don't want to go into the weeds on this (nothing proprietary, just want to keep this down to a few paragraphs), but one of the problems of de-layering IC's for failure analysis purposes is the selectivity issue.  

There are many different materials used to make IC's and they have different polishing (or etching) rates, so it can be quite a challenge to reverse the manufacturing process.  CMP is used to make modern IC's but a number of the chemicals used are known carcinogens.  The machinery built to _make_ IC's takes this into account, but the DE-processing tools available don't.  So one of my goals was to use food-grade chemicals to do it.  I had good success.  Among the numerous approaches I tried was to use a certain famous brown soft drink because it contains phosphoric acid.  Believe it or not, it was too aggressive for my needs!  Something to think about the next time you consume one.  

On the other hand, salts of some of the carboxylic acids found in fruits were quite useful.  Some readily form complexes with copper ions, which was perfect for my needs.

Sorry, probably TMI, but it provides some insight w/regard to my chemistry paranoia.  I regularly worked with some really nasty items like concentrated hydrofluoric acid, HCl, fuming nitric and fuming sulfuric acids, 30% H2O2 and the like but never had a significant incident over the span of about 40 years.  I did learn to respect 30% hydrogen peroxide after I added some to a small amount of hydrochloric acid.  I was looking for a gold etch.  Anyway, the solution soon decomposed by releasing chlorine gas (in the fume hood).  The reaction showed me that oxygen, if properly motivated, can pull the hydrogen off HCl and release elemental chlorine!!  Something to think about the stuff we breathe.  And why green algae want to get rid of it.


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## hman (Mar 31, 2021)

Congratulations on having found benign chemicals to do the job!   I've heard of using citric acid (lemon juice) to clean copper.  Didn't realize it was also an etchant.  Probably not too significant when cleaning copper-bottomed cookware ... but the layer thickness of ICs is a LOT thinner!


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## ericc (Mar 31, 2021)

So I have a small bottle of blue Dykem which has lost its color.  It works very poorly now.  I know what to do as soon as one of my blue pens stops working.  Or black, or red, or whatever.


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## graham-xrf (Mar 31, 2021)

ericc said:


> So I have a small bottle of blue Dykem which has lost its color.  It works very poorly now.  I know what to do as soon as one of my blue pens stops working.  Or black, or red, or whatever.


Hi Eric.
One of the things I feel a bit unsettled about is how long my 236mL (8 fl oz) plastic bottle of Dykem will last if left to itself. I would be using it up very slowly. I have heard that Dykem deteriorates if you don't use it up, but I don't know how true that is. So what you say is from direct experience, for which I thank you. Perhaps other HM long-term users can let us know whether Dykem can have years of shelf life.

So far as I know, propyl alcohol will remain as propanol. Of course, suppliers will have "use by" dates, but most solvents have indefinite life if kept sealed. Perhaps not so when they are mixed up with other stuff. I think what perhaps happened to your Dykem started with the Butanol.

Here I speculate, trying to think it through. Note as @homebrewed  has explained how that ingredient can react with oxygen to form a peroxide. If that be hydrogen peroxide, then you have a powerful oxidizer that can bleach the colour out of dyes. I did wonder why one needs butanol in Dykem anyway, but likely "_HM Cynic of the Year_" would say it's only purpose was to deliberately give the dye a limited shelf life, so you need to buy more.

You can try to put some ball-point blue into the dead Dykem. If what remains can still evaporate to leave a film, that's a way to keep it going until you use it all up. More likely, the zonked out Dykem is beyond redemption, and only deserves disposal by the @homebrewed suggested "combustion"!


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## graham-xrf (Apr 1, 2021)

*More on ball-point pen inks.*
Yes - I am still riding this experiment, in the sense of 1st try been standing around for a few days, left to itself, because I have not got around to clearing it up, and I noted changes. My wife thinks I'm in need of help..
 "I don't know what's got into him"?
"Why on Earth would he want to be scratching lines and writing on metal,and then keep wiping it off"?
"He does it all reversed! He gets the ink out of the pens, and spreads it out, then he writes in it with something sharp"!

*Gel Pen ink does not work- but ballpoint ink does!*
At least - not in the shellac/alcohol mix. It appears to at first, but the painted layer has a grainy top surface, and a thick rim boundary. If left for long enough, gravity separates it. This would have been seen sooner if I had a test-tube centrifuge. [Is that maybe a machinist aspirational project?].



	

		
			
		

		
	
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I did try to paint some metal with some of the separated top layer, which I reasoned would contain the traditional ball-point ink. It still appears to work in getting a quick drying layer, but this is not a good test. I should have dumped that batch long ago, and properly checked out a, clean fluid mix.

It is not yet quite right. I think the layer might still be too thick, and on that plasticized tin-plate lid from a spice can, lines would scribe just fine with a scalpel. With a carbide scriber, the layer hangs onto itself better than to the metal, so drags a line that tears a little "wider" than wanted.
I think the layer is perhaps too thick, and needs more alcohol.

The coverage is completely enough. I also painted up a layer about 2" x 1", and hardly used more than a couple of drops out of that top layer, which all started with half a gram of shellac. When dry, it's durable, and does not come off onto the fingers or clothes, When it wipes off with alcohol, it comes off easy, except for a resisting faint fine line around the paint boundary, which seems to need some more hard rubbing.

*Other fluids*
One suggested by @homebrewed is to get some expanded polystyrene foam (parcel packing, wall insulation, lightweight feeble white stuff), and dissolve in acetone. I consider acetone to be harsher stuff than alcohol, and I wheeze up on the fumes, so I use a carbon filter mask, but anyway, the polystyrene magically disappears into it, and the stuff that is left  does leave a layer, but the fluid evaporates and thickens by itself real fast. MEK evaporates slowly, but I am not going to use it.

So another experiment is mooted, using polystyrene packing


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## homebrewed (Apr 1, 2021)

graham-xrf said:


> *More on ball-point pen inks.*
> Yes - I am still riding this experiment, in the sense of 1st try been standing around for a few days, left to itself, because I have not got around to clearing it up, and I noted changes. My wife thinks I'm in need of help..
> "I don't know what's got into him"?
> "Why on Earth would he want to be scratching lines and writing on metal,and then keep wiping it off"?
> ...


Other solvents like hexane or mineral spirits should dissolve polystyrene as well.  Paint thinner will evaporate more slowly than acetone but has its own distinctive odor.


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## Diecutter (Apr 1, 2021)

graham-xrf said:


> Hi Eric.
> One of the things I feel a bit unsettled about is how long my 236mL (8 fl oz) plastic bottle of Dykem will last if left to itself. I would be using it up very slowly. I have heard that Dykem deteriorates if you don't use it up, but I don't know how true that is. So what you say is from direct experience, for which I thank you. Perhaps other HM long-term users can let us know whether Dykem can have years of shelf life.
> 
> So far as I know, propyl alcohol will remain as propanol. Of course, suppliers will have "use by" dates, but most solvents have indefinite life if kept sealed. Perhaps not so when they are mixed up with other stuff. I think what perhaps happened to your Dykem started with the Butanol.
> ...


I had an 8 oz. bottle of blue Dykem just run out that lasted me twenty years. ( I spread it THIN).  It was good to the last drop. I hope I'm around as long as the new bottle I just bought.


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## graham-xrf (Apr 1, 2021)

Diecutter said:


> I had an 8 oz. bottle of blue Dykem just run out that lasted me twenty years. ( I spread it THIN).  It was good to the last drop. I hope I'm around as long as the new bottle I just bought.


OK - That is good news! I had wondered what was going on with the bottle that had lost it's colour.


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## Shotgun (Apr 1, 2021)

Just FYI:  Thought I'd try mixing some pen ink into hand sanitizer.  I used a 1oz travel size container.  
The ink dissolves, but it doesn't go on thick enough. 
Threw in some styrofoam, but it wouldn't melt, so I poured in a little fingernail polish remover (ie, acetone).  That made it thick, but it wouldn't spread smoothly.


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## graham-xrf (Apr 1, 2021)

Shotgun said:


> Just FYI:  Thought I'd try mixing some pen ink into hand sanitizer.  I used a 1oz travel size container.
> The ink dissolves, but it doesn't go on thick enough.
> Threw in some styrofoam, but it wouldn't melt, so I poured in a little fingernail polish remover (ie, acetone).  That made it thick, but it wouldn't spread smoothly.


You just got unlucky with the combinations. 
Hand sanitizer is alcohol, or alcohol in a gel. It is the right stuff to dissolve a varnish - if there is a varnish in there, which in your case, was the bit that was missing. For me, it was the shellac.

Step two was to "throw in some polystyrene foam", but it wouldn't melt. That is correct, it does not readily dissolve in alcohol. We also have other mystery hand sanitizer ingredients.

Finally you add in to this lot, acetone. That finally has the effect needed on the polystyrene, but the pot is now much inhibited by various alcohol + water + hand sanitizer unknowns.

*What might work..*
Start with some expanded polystyrene foam. That is different stuff to the plastic foam you see I have used as a test tube holder in some of the pictures. I mean the very light, white, not very flexible, quite brittle stuff that makes a big mess of little white balls if you try to saw it. That should melt away into acetone. You only need enough to be able to make the acetone "spread", and dry off, leaving a film of polystyrene.

Don't sensitize yourself by breathing any acetone fumes. Do it outside, or wear a 3M mask with carbon cartridge. Remeber how extremely flammable this stuff is. Take care!

Once you have some mostly acetone that leaves a thin lacquer film, then have a ball-pen donate some ink. Possibly it will still go OK if you put the colour into the acetone first. That is for experiment. Nail varnish remover is sold way overpriced to the ladies at cosmetic counters. A much better deal is the 400mL spray can of expanding foam cleaner. It removes expanding polyurethane builder's gap filler and frame fixer that has not yet cured, so to clean out applicator guns, wipe spills and the like. Or - just get a bottle of acetone.

This is the experiment I planned to do with expanded polystyrene and acetone. I can't really call that stuff a "foam", but anyway, in many ways, you got there first.


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## Shotgun (Apr 1, 2021)

graham-xrf said:


> *What might work..*
> Start with some expanded polystyrene foam. That is different stuff to the plastic foam you see I have used as a test tube holder in some of the pictures. I mean the very light, white, not very flexible, quite brittle stuff that makes a big mess of little white balls if you try to saw it. That should melt away into acetone. You only need enough to be able to make the acetone "spread", and dry off, leaving a film of polystyrene.


Nah.  Tried that.
It melts styrofoam down, but it leave a ball of thick snot swimming in the acetone.  I colored it anyway and spread it on.  Not much color initially, and even less once it dried.  Some of what was left turned to greys and browns.


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## graham-xrf (Apr 1, 2021)

@Shotgun  This is just long-shot thought, but if you have hold of nail varnish remover, would you happen to be able to get hold of a couple of drops of the nail varnish, especially if it be clear or very pale? If you put down (say) a drop of varnish, and a drop of acetone, mix together, and see if it "spreads". Then try another drop of acetone, and so on, just to see where is the point it gets so thin as to be useless. It's the sort of thing I might try, but there is no nail varnish at my place.


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## Shotgun (Apr 1, 2021)

graham-xrf said:


> @Shotgun  This is just long-shot thought, but if you have hold of nail varnish remover, would you happen to be able to get hold of a couple of drops of the nail varnish, especially if it be clear or very pale? If you put down (say) a drop of varnish, and a drop of acetone, mix together, and see if it "spreads". Then try another drop of acetone, and so on, just to see where is the point it gets so thin as to be useless. It's the sort of thing I might try, but there is no nail varnish at my place.


Well, I would never go into my wife's supply and take some of her nail polish and remover.  That would just be wrong.  A completely immoral thing to do.  

But, if a person were to do such a thing, they might find that the remover doesn't really mix with the polish, and gives a weird goo that is completely useless.

However, that person might also find that applying the nail polish directly from the bottle, using the supplied applicator, gives WONDERFUL results.  They might find that they get a solid coating that shows a clear fine scratch mark from a scribe.

Of course, I may never know as I would never sneak my wife's nail polish without her permission while she is at work and would never be able to catch me at it.  NEVER!


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## graham-xrf (Apr 1, 2021)

Hee Hee 
Don't do it! Get some Dykem. Expensive as it is, for what it is, it is way better value than what you get at the cosmetics counter!

Beware also.It comes in blue, and also "Steel Red". If your layout fluid stash were discovered by your wife, you might just find some of your supply "disappearing" !


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## homebrewed (Apr 2, 2021)

Examination of the SDS for Dykem revealed quite a laundry list of components.  A number of solvents, including ethanol, butyl acetate, n-butyl alcohol, "diacetone alcohol" and isopropanol.  The lion's share is the first three.  It uses cellulose nitrate as the residual film.  Dyes include solvent red 160, basic green 4 and basic violet 1.  There also a few components to help the stuff flow and stick to metal -- triphenyl phosphate and oxidized castor oil (triphenyl phosphate is a plasticizer used in lacquers and varnishes).  These are in the  single-digit percent concentration range or lower.

Butyl acetate smells like bananas, but that probably is not why it is used.  According to Wikipedia, diacetone alcohol often is used as the solvent for cellulose ester lacquers.  It is odorless and its boiling point is 166C.  Its LD50 (the amount needed to produce a 50% death rate) is 4grams/kg for rats.  By comparison, the LD50 for acetone is 5.8g/kg.  So diacetone alcohol should be handled much the same as acetone would be; however, its vapor pressure at room temperature should be lower so it won't evaporate as quickly.  Hopefully that also translates to a reduced exposure, but it all depends on the application and air flow.

For an entirely different reason I recently wondered about the differences between shellac and lacquer, if any.  So I looked it up.  Shellac is an insect-based coating, but the original lacquer is nitrocellulose (cellulose nitrate), probably dissolved in acetone.  IIRC, neither one of these is a hardening resin.  So Dykem could be classified as a type of lacquer.  Modern-day lacquer probably contains polyurethane resin, which DOES cross-link as a part of its drying process.  I personally wouldn't use polyurethane for the base of a DIY layout fluid, it could be hard to remove later on.

I think the bottom line is that it would be more expedient to buy Dykem, unless it just isn't available:  and you CAN obtain the ingredients to make it.  You probably wouldn't need all the solvents, just a quantity of lacquer thinner, nitrocellulose, dye and (maybe) the plasticizer.


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## Shotgun (Apr 3, 2021)

If I couldn't get Dykem, I'd settle for fingernail polish.  Available everywhere in small quantities, no mixing, comes with it's own applicator, and available in a range of designer colors.


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## ericc (Apr 18, 2021)

graham-xrf said:


> Hi Eric.
> One of the things I feel a bit unsettled about is how long my 236mL (8 fl oz) plastic bottle of Dykem will last if left to itself. I would be using it up very slowly. I have heard that Dykem deteriorates if you don't use it up, but I don't know how true that is. So what you say is from direct experience, for which I thank you. Perhaps other HM long-term users can let us know whether Dykem can have years of shelf life.



Hi Graham.  I will attach a picture of a blotch of my tired blue Dykem next to blue sharpie.  The blue grey faded smear near the middle of the disk is the Dykem.  The bottle is also in the picture.  Note that I have a bottle of steel red Dykem that is brilliant.  Also, this blue is still usable, but it is getting hard to see.


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## graham-xrf (Apr 19, 2021)

ericc said:


> Hi Graham.  I will attach a picture of a blotch of my tired blue Dykem next to blue sharpie.  The blue grey faded smear near the middle of the disk is the Dykem.  The bottle is also in the picture.  Note that I have a bottle of steel red Dykem that is brilliant.  Also, this blue is still usable, but it is getting hard to see.


Clearly a fade-out deterioration. The colour has faded or bleached away. It looks almost as if you took the innards of the sharpie, and put it into the Blue Dykem faded varnish, it might give it a boost! 

Interesting that the red is so much better. I have both. Usually, its the reds in paints and dyes that fades out, like with photos done on inkjet printers. The colour from inorganic ions, like cobalt, iron, copper tends to be permanent, so long as the chemical has not reacted. Ultra-violet light can cause chemical changes . The colour from organic dyes is harder to maintain..

I can match the exact steel red hue from injet printer ink, and couple it with a varnish that will wipe away with alcohol. Getting the varnish and evaporation rate, and spreading characteristic takes some experimentation. I am lucky enough to be in a place where I can get the stuff. I think we have gone some way down the road of enabling a home-brew version if anyone needs it.


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## mcostello (Apr 19, 2021)

graham-xrf said:


> Clearly a fade-out deterioration. The colour has faded or bleached away. It looks almost as if you took the innards of the sharpie, and put it into the Blue Dykem faded varnish, it might give it a boost!
> 
> Interesting that the red is so much better. I have both. Usually, its the reds in paints and dyes that fades out, like with photos done on inkjet printers. The colour from inorganic ions, like cobalt, iron, copper tends to be permanent, so long as the chemical has not reacted. Ultra-violet light can cause chemical changes . The colour from organic dyes is harder to maintain..
> 
> I can match the exact steel red hue from injet printer ink, and couple it with a varnish that will wipe away with alcohol. Getting the varnish and evaporation rate, and spreading characteristic takes some experimentation. I am lucky enough to be in a place where I can get the stuff. I think we have gone some way down the road of enabling a home-brew version if anyone needs it.


I am nearing the end of My bottle of red. Could You post the recipe. I would like to possibly scale it down for a small batch. Has anyone tried nail polish? I don't want to get funny looks from the Wife!


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## graham-xrf (Apr 19, 2021)

mcostello said:


> I am nearing the end of My bottle of red. Could You post the recipe. I would like to possibly scale it down for a small batch. Has anyone tried nail polish? I don't want to get funny looks from the Wife!


The series of experiments revealed that there need not be a single particular recipe. Any kind of varnish that will wipe off with alcohol, dyed any colour you like. As described in earlier postings in the thread, I went for shellac flakes from eBay, crunched up and dissolved in IPA. Methylated alcohol, of "rubbing alcohol" will do. If you can stand the smell, even a little gasoline. Look back in this thread for descriptions of what I was up to.

I used a red ball-point pen to get the colour. That was enough to dye about 40ml of shellac in alcohol. There was about 2 gram of shellac.
I started with it too thick, and kept adding a little alcohol, about 2ml at a time, until my little batch behaved better as it spread. You need the dried layer to be thin enough that it does not hang onto itself and tear a messed up line from the scriber. It needs to be a fine line, like you get from scribing over Sharpie ink.

Sharpie ink has the disadvantage of easily rubbing off, but there is nothing wrong in opening a Sharpie (see YouTube about how), and getting at the ink felt in the little plastic tube, to get the colour into the shellac/alcohol.

A ladies nail varnish is another way to get a varnish that will wipe away with alcohol. Thinning it with alcohol works, and the colour is ready made. Nail varnish remover is acetone. Mixing some of that into the alcohol gets a quicker drying mixture.

I found also the aftermarket dyes used for injet printer refills for the cost conscious also works. These come as cyan, magenta, and yellow. I found two drops of yellow with two of magenta gave a blood red that looked better than the Dykem. Those drops were in about 10ml of alcohol, but the thing was entirely empirical. It was "experiment", after all!

I found colour from a ink gel-type ball pen simply did not work.  It separated, collecting in the bottom of the tube


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## Dabbler (Jun 11, 2021)

Shotgun said:


> they might find that the remover doesn't really mix with the polish



You thin nail polish with acetone - regular polish remover had oils and fragrances and other things to stop your nails from drying out and cracking.  That's probably what's in the 'goo' ball...


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## Shotgun (Jun 11, 2021)

Dabbler said:


> You thin nail polish with acetone - regular polish remover had oils and fragrances and other things to stop your nails from drying out and cracking.  That's probably what's in the 'goo' ball...


Time for another experiment.


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