Anyone Ever Use This “Hard Rubber Deoxidizer” On Your Stems?

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lbepens1

Lurker
Jun 25, 2018
13
17
Sorry, I keep catching myself posting to the wrong person. For some reason I thought Georged Posted those. I meant to respond to him.

Again I apologize.
 
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lbepens1

Lurker
Jun 25, 2018
13
17
Net semantic content: What you are selling is Clorox Lite

Conversational tone is irrelevant. (Sorry, but when it's physics or chemistry that's being disputed and not artistic interpretation or similar, facts are all that matter.)

Note the reflectivity of the stem in the following pics. If the surface of that stem was made irregular somehow, it would show up as distortion like ripples on a pond.

Oxidation never occurs evenly enough that removing it by chemical means---no matter how mild the solution---would result in a second surface "under" it that was as smooth as the original "outer" one. Result? It would have to be sanded and polished to make it uniformly smooth again.

And if that's where you're going to end up, why bother with an expensive, hours-long chemical soak beforehand?

.

View attachment 28373View attachment 28374View attachment 28375View attachment 28376
 

lbepens1

Lurker
Jun 25, 2018
13
17
Net semantic content: What you are selling is Clorox Lite

Conversational tone is irrelevant. (Sorry, but when it's physics or chemistry that's being disputed and not artistic interpretation or similar, facts are all that matter.)

Note the reflectivity of the stem in the following pics. If the surface of that stem was made irregular somehow, it would show up as distortion like ripples on a pond.

Oxidation never occurs evenly enough that removing it by chemical means---no matter how mild the solution---would result in a second surface "under" it that was as smooth as the original "outer" one. Result? It would have to be sanded and polished to make it uniformly smooth again.

And if that's where you're going to end up, why bother with an expensive, hours-long chemical soak beforehand?

.

View attachment 28373View attachment 28374View attachment 28375View attachment 28376
Beautiful pictures. But I have a lot of beautiful pictures as well. You seem to think this is a dispute. I may not agree with your way of doing things but I am more then happy to discuss it as there are number of ways to approach restoring. If you have researched everything and have research to share please send it to me and I will be happy to go over it and give you my opinion. I would also love to see the video you have made or you can just break down how you did these restorations here. Again, I can't tell you what I think if I don't know how you did it.

You are right though. I do need to do a video and I plan on doing this. I posted a step by step process using pictures though on instagram and facebook
 

lbepens1

Lurker
Jun 25, 2018
13
17
Beautiful pictures. You seem to think this is a dispute. I may not agree with your way of doing things but I am more then happy to discuss it as there are number of ways to approach restoring. If you have researched everything and have research to share please send it to me and I will be happy to go over it and give you my opinion. If you want to share your process in restoring that would be great as well. I would love to see some before and after pictures as well. I have posted a lot of photos over the last 8 years of work I have done on pipes and am happy to share those with you they are also posted on instagram as well as facebook.

Sincerely,
Mark
 

pipebaum81

Part of the Furniture Now
Nov 23, 2014
669
235
As Georged has expertly put, a uniform surface is the way towards making surfaces shine aka reflect light. Paint, resin, metals, hell even water’s reflection requires uniformity. There seems to be a market for quick and easy, not to mention completely no skilled required, fix for our less than lustrous vulcanite stems and I sympathize but you simply cannot take a solid surface and make it shine without some form of uniform sanding.

There is a ton of online content showing the restoration of vulcanite stems through sanding. Is there one video, start to finish using these miracle products?
 
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Chasing Embers

Captain of the Black Frigate
Nov 12, 2014
43,248
108,347
A lighter? Please explain. Would love to try this.
I had a thread with videos, but YouTube deleted the videos for inappropriate content: tobacco use.

Here's the general idea.


Here's my thread. Instead of using a buffer, I thumb buff toothpaste onto the stem for a mirror finish after removing the oxidation.

 

georged

Lifer
Mar 7, 2013
5,491
13,920
So, technically, you are right.

When the subject is technical, there's no other kind of right.

Again:

--- Oxidized rubber cannot be changed back to UNoxidized rubber by chemical or any other means. It is different in atomic structure.

--- Therefore, the oxidized rubber must be physically removed.

--- There are only two practical (meaning doesn't require a physics laboratory with a tunable scanning laser, or something like that) ways to accomplish that physical removal: chemically and mechanically.

--- Since oxidation never occurs in perfect geometric planes or curves, removing it chemically will leave behind an irregular surface.

--- That irregular surface must then be made regular again using mechanical means.

--- Mechanical means was one of the two options in the beginning.

The End.

Many brands of toothpaste contain a chemical bleaching agent (typically carbamide peroxide or hydrogen peroxide... think "Clorox that's safe to put in your mouth") as well as abrasive particles. Using such toothpastes for pipe stem "de-greening" CAN work in terms of end result if someone is willing to put in the effort required, but only because it is functionally identical to sanding off the oxidation with 2 micron (8000 grit) sandpaper. It's just sandpaper in a different form. The bleaching agent contributes nothing. (It converts oxidized particles into solution leaving thousands of tiny irregular voids behind. Tiny irregular voids that in turn must be returned to level by mechanically "lowering" the healthy material until no voids remain... using the abrasive particles suspended in the paste.)

What you are selling, Ibepens1, boils down to fancy toothpaste.

There is no "C".
 
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greeneyes

Lifer
Jun 5, 2018
2,125
12,189
--- Oxidized rubber cannot be changed back to UNoxidized rubber by chemical or any other means. It is different in atomic structure.

I must preface by clarifying that I do not suggest that the "hard-rubber-deoxidizer" product is doing this "UNoxidization." However oxidizing reactions are naturally countered by reducing reactions (reducing is the scientific term for "unoxidization") in nature (thus the term red-ox). Except in extremely rare cases where the oxidized or reduced product is extremely stable, reverse reactions are possible. Whether this can be done in situ on a pipe stem using conventional over-the-counter materials and non-laboratory conditions is another matter. The matter of chemistry and chemical reactions is one of bond making and bond breaking between atoms.

Below are examples applicable to vulcanized rubber.

"Preparation, characterization and properties of intrinsic self-healing elastomers." Shibboleth Authentication Request - https://doi-org.ezp2.lib.umn.edu/10.1039/C9TB00831D (Excerpt: "Accordingly, the inherent sulfur cross-links of vulcanized chloroprene rubber was allowed to be dynamically rearranged and reshuffled at 120 °C, which endowed the rubber with the functionality of repeated self-healing, reshaping and recycling.")

"Crack healing and reclaiming of vulcanized rubber by triggering the rearrangement of inherent sulfur crosslinked networks." Crack healing and reclaiming of vulcanized rubber by triggering the rearrangement of inherent sulfur crosslinked networks - Green Chemistry (RSC Publishing) - https://doi.org/10.1039/C5GC00754B (Excerpt: "It can thus be concluded that disulfide metathesis works in healing of the vulcanized rubber by triggering the rearrangement of inherent sulfur crosslinked networks under the catalysis of CuCl2.")

"Turning Vulcanized Natural Rubber into a Self-Healing Polymer: Effect of the Disulfide/Polysulfide Ratio." https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.6b01760

"Self-healing, Reshaping, and Recycling of Vulcanized Chloroprene Rubber: A Case Study of Multitask Cyclic Utilization of Cross-linked Polymer." https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.6b00224
 
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georged

Lifer
Mar 7, 2013
5,491
13,920
Whether this can be done in situ on a pipe stem using conventional over-the-counter materials and non-laboratory conditions is another matter.

It's also the only thing THAT matters.

While what might be possible in a laboratory on a microscopic scale is interesting, it isn't remotely useful in settling whether or not someone is trying to sell a solution of bleach and mild abrasive particles to a group of pipe smokers for $412.50 a gallon.

Until Ibepens1 produces his product's Safety Data Sheet (SDS) that was requested ten days ago, in fact, such information is nothing but obfuscation. Exactly the sort of doubt-raising, curiosity-inducing, quasi-testimonial technobabble that powers patent medicine schemes to this day. (Traveling wagons merely gave way to AM radio. Ads containing carefully crafted, loophole-exploiting language designed to avoid legal liability is how.)
 
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Guppy

Might Stick Around
Sep 6, 2019
70
224
Texas
Beautiful pictures. You seem to think this is a dispute. I may not agree with your way of doing things but I am more then happy to discuss it as there are number of ways to approach restoring. If you have researched everything and have research to share please send it to me and I will be happy to go over it and give you my opinion. If you want to share your process in restoring that would be great as well. I would love to see some before and after pictures as well. I have posted a lot of photos over the last 8 years of work I have done on pipes and am happy to share those with you they are also posted on instagram as well as facebook.

Sincerely,
Mark
George has graciously provided an entire YouTube channel with his techniques. Before getting too deep into this take a look. He knows what he is talking about to put it mildly.
 

craig61a

Lifer
Apr 29, 2017
5,765
47,541
Minnesota USA
I follow the techniques used by George in his videos, and it’s usually just a matter of 10-15 minutes worth of effort to get a stem black and polished. On some stems where it’s difficult to get into certain areas, I’ll use a lighter to darken the oxidation.

Applying a coating of food grade mineral oil for a period of time prior to buffing and wiping it off works good for me also.

Never really saw the need for the oil of aphrodite, and the dust of the grand wazoo, and such other preparations...
 
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