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blueing (new approach)

dian

Titanium
Joined
Feb 22, 2010
Location
ch
im proposing to use copper sulphate to check taper-fit, lobing and such.

instead of messing with blue, spreading it with various methods trying to achieve an acceptable distribution, you have a jar with a copper sulphate solution that can be used forever. you dunk the taper in there for a few seconds (depending on temp.) and get an extremely uniform coating of copper. sub micron thickness, if you want. i managed to chip off a piece that i consider very thick and it was 3µ. the copper layer is soft and rubs off easily. what stays behind is a faint glaze, like after using a bronze brush on steel.
 
Might work decently, just take care. A small amount of copper sulfate ingestion (get it on your hands, eat a sandwich) can make you very sick or even kill you.
 
Might work decently, just take care. A small amount of copper sulfate ingestion (get it on your hands, eat a sandwich) can make you very sick or even kill you.

That's interesting. I was told it's toxic but in the same time I think it is widely used to spray grape vines against some fungus. I wonder now how safe that is.
 
They use copper sulphate to treat pond algae all over the country. The side effect is it kills all the invertebrates and some amphibians in the water but not the fish.
 
Interesting thought. Already used prior to scribing lines for layout in the old days.

Might be a little more difficult to remove for another spotting, and so might build up on areas not rubbed off if repeated.

Toxicity is not extreme, here is an SDS entry for the lethal doses:

Animal Toxicity: Dermal LD50 > 8000 mg/kg,Acute oral LD50 (male rats) 472 mg/kg

That's 8 grams per kg on skin, and about a half gram per kg if ingested. I'd not think anyone is likely to get that by accident if even the least precautions are taken.

http://msds.mkap.com/DryFertilizer/CopperSulfate.pdf
 
Yes doubtful that it will kill you if you don't make the sandwich out of it, but it can make you sick, and is an extreme eye irritant IIRC. I am a little cautious having little children in the house. You could probably eat regular hi spot bluing for a snack with no ill effects... And I think a very thin layer of copper would be much more difficult to see, but do let us know.

Use as an insecticide or algae killer is in very dilute concentrations - that's a little different than handling the pure full strength form from the bottle.
 
Yes doubtful that it will kill you if you don't make the sandwich out of it, but it can make you sick, and is an extreme eye irritant IIRC. I am a little cautious having little children in the house. You could probably eat regular hi spot bluing for a snack with no ill effects... And I think a very thin layer of copper would be much more difficult to see, but do let us know.

Use as an insecticide or algae killer is in very dilute concentrations - that's a little different than handling the pure full strength form from the bottle.

I believe you are right. I remember how quite a few times after eating unwashed grapes on the farm as a child, I would get quite sick. They were sprayed with cooper sulfate but nobody knew it's toxic.
 
i believe its used as stump-killer, where you spread the granules on the stump.

anyway, it might even be usefull for scraping/spotting, havent tried that yet. if you really want to remove the haze a peroxide/sufphuric solution will do it fast. of a concentration you can stick your finger into.

i recently inside-ground some rings, id was 12 mm i believe. i treated them with c.s. and when rubbing on a grinding arbor found "extreme" lobing. "extreme" in view of the fact that film thickness was probably 0.5µ. there were 4 lobes, disposing of the notion that you get uniform pressure from a er collet. now, i dont think this could have been done with blue, lead of thatever else that needs spreading.
 
we dont have "sharpies", but very often a felt pen will not colour a smooth taper very well. at least the ones i know of.
 








 
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