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Re: Oxidised hard rubber

Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2006-08-15 12:24

Well it just seems that on the particular mouthpieces I have used bleach on, especially the one I cite in my experiment, seem to have had no adverse effects. Perhaps if I were one of the world's top clarinetists I may have noticed an effect when I played on them. I think that for my experimental one, where I treated only part of the rails so I had a control area, I would have noticed damage as small as 0.03 mm.

So all that can be concluded, is that our experiences have simply been different, which makes it all the more interesting, what others experiences have been or will be, if/when they succumb to their curiosity in this matter. :-)

It is good to see that in our search for truth, our focus is now on stainless steel, rather than steel..

> *** And ... a little research later points out that chlorine gas dissolved in an aqueous solution (Clorox) is death to stainless steel but carbon steel (blue steel) is almost completely unaffected". *** <

I did some Googling on this, and found quite a bit of good information. For example, the process by which stainless steel can be attacked by chlorine is well described at http://www.mcnallyinstitute.com/04-html/4-1.html

So my curiosity got the better of me, and I made up another powerful chlorine solution using a swimming pool tablet. It certainly did a good job of bleaching my dish cloth!

I dropped in two stainless steel needle springs, one from Kraus, and one from Ferrees. In the light of this new information from Mark and the Web, I looked forward to a dramatic happening.

I was sadly disappointed. Two hours later I removed the springs and could detect no change, neither in appearance, diameter, or function.

So this adds further to the mystery. I did not research the net thoroughly enough on this topic to find whether there are some grades of stainless steel which resist chlorine attack. Perhaps this is the case.

My "Clorox" is "Bathroom Cleaner" and according to the MSDS, does not contain sodium hypochlorite, which is why I did not use this in my experiments. I note that Clorox make dozens of cleaning and bleaching products. I assume that Vytas and Mark are referring to a product containing perhaps 3% chlorine, as per the MSDS sheets for Clorox bleach.

I look forward to other forum members reporting on their own experiments.

Certainly, I would be wary about soaking an entire clarinet body with stainless steel springs in light of the information found. And I reiterate, that with SEVERAL different materials involved, soaking a clarinet body may introduce all manner of other reactions, including galvanic action (also well described in the link provided above.)

To me, the jury is out on chlorine's action on both hard rubber and stainless steel, with just a tiny bit of doubt remaining on its action on steel.

Post Edited (2006-08-15 12:27)

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Oxidized hard rubber new

EuGeneSee

2006-08-12 19:58