Homebrew Layout Fluid Experiments

[Diecutter]

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"!

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.

 

[graham-xrf]

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.

 

[Shotgun]

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.

 

[graham-xrf]

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.

 

[Shotgun]

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.

 

[graham-xrf]

@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.

 

[Shotgun]

@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!

 

[graham-xrf]

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" !

 

[homebrewed]

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.

 

[Shotgun]

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.