Spiers Improved Mitre Plane - questions

[Benchwayze]

Know exactly what you mean Smudger.

Expensive at a quarter of the price!



John

 

[woodbloke]

mathewww wrote:

£24.95 for a 500ml bottle

That's twice the price :shock: of a half-respectable bottle of malt...might be cheaper to de-rust planes using whiskey :lol: - Rob

 

[matthewwh]

Don't forget that one bottle makes ten litres at usable strength guys.

That makes it cheaper than beer! - and I've never seen beer that can do this:

What's more, you can re-use it several times over; so if he treated each face in turn in a shallow tray to avoid wetting the infill, Aled's plane, including the iron, would probably need about £2.50's worth.

 

[Benchwayze]

You haven't seen the stuff I drink!

Coca-Cola is supposed to work tho!

John ccasion5:

 

[Benchwayze]

Don't forget that one bottle makes ten litres at usable strength guys.

Hey Matthew,

Guys? What about us 'grils'!

Thanks for the link Matthew.
But it's not often I get tools this bad...! It's always there 'Justin Case'.

I've run out od Meths. Can you drink Camelia Oil?

Regards
John

 

[Jake]

How different is it, from, say, this?

edit: no dilution with that one, OK.

 

[Benchwayze]

Don't forget that one bottle makes ten litres at usable strength guys.

Hey Matthew,

Guys? What about us 'grils'!

Thanks for the link Matthew.
But it's not often I get tools this bad...! It's always there 'Justin Case'.

I've run out of Meths. Can you drink Camelia Oil?

Regards
John

 

[Jake]

Looking at similar solutions, most of them appear to be based on 'chelating agents' - which include EDTA (whatever that is) acetic acid (vinegar) and no less than an old friend on these forums - citric acid.

 

[frugal]

Looking at similar solutions, most of them appear to be based on 'chelating agents' - which include EDTA (whatever that is) acetic acid (vinegar) and no less than an old friend on these forums - citric acid.

It looks like a synthetic chelating agent that has some environmental issues.

http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/edta/edtah.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDTA

 

[Jake]

Intersting, I was too lazy to look - can't be EDTA as that isn't biodegradable. They mention a bio-degradable substitute/variant - EDDS, so it could be something like that.

Any idea what's in it, Matthew? How is it better than citric acid?

 

[Benchwayze]

One of theseshould be within your budget now for trimming doors and cleaning off old paint etc. to keep uncle happy :wink: :wink:

Thanks for the link George.

I think I will dive in there and keep myself happy!

Regards
John

 

[matthewwh]

Any idea what's in it, Matthew? How is it better than citric acid?

Hi Jake,

I'm afraid I don't know what the formulation is, but I do know that it is water based rather than acid based. Acids will eat away at everything, rust, good metal, non ferrous metal etc. The rust is easier for the acid to digest so it tends to get eaten away more rapidly, but you will always lose a little bit of everything else too.

Restore on the other hand, singles out the rust and leaves everything else unharmed, (except for things that are normally damaged by water - like wooden infills for example).

Once the rust is gone, restore leaves the formerly rusted surface passivated, so you won't find that your freshly de-rusted object has turned bright orange with new "flash rust" within a few hours of coming out of the bath. The casting in the third picture was treated several weeks ago and is still as clean as a whistle. It's worth noting though, that it doesn't passivate any non-corroded surfaces.

 

[lurker]

This has set me thinking :-k

I bought some Iron Sequestrinate the other day to feed a poorly Azalia.

I think I'll experiment with a pack ( 5 packs for £2.50 from Wilkinsons) on some rusty nails.

Any Chemist care to comment?

 

[matthewwh]

Update.

I've had a chat with Paul and it turns out that it's his Dad, a retired Professor of organic chemistry and a lecturer at Cambridge University that came up with the formulation. Paul takes care of how to turn it from a formula into a producable product and then runs the business.

I also have a price comparison which might interest you, between Restore and other products that do a similar job, including the acid based ones that will eat away at the good metal too.

These are all based on the largest volume packages (the best rate per litre) and do not include shipping. Bearing in mind that restore is highly concetrated, so it costs much less to post than those sold at finished strength too.

Restore: £2.48/litre

POR15Metalready: £6.75/litre

RustAway: £8.00/litre

Eastwood: £8.47/litre

Metalblack: £11.99/litre

We received the first shipment today and have listed it on the site here.

Unsurprisingly, Paul is keeping his cards very close to his chest about how it works, although he did say that it is just about Ph neutral and doesn't contain any citric or phosphoric acids.

Any results from the plant food experiment yet or shouldn't I ask?

 

[Jake]

Sounds like one of the more sophisticated chelating agents then.

I have to say that talking of 'acid attacking everything' is a bit OTT, given the acids and concentrations involved.

 

[mahking51]

Hi matthewwh,

Hope this is not too controversial but can you possibly tell me why the VPI pots are so unbelievably expensive? Three minute aluminium tins, must cost pennies only when bought by the thousand; three pieces of sponge, again fractions of a penny; labels, lets be generous at 5p each; The magic ingredient lets say 1ml per pot, (hugely generous I would think).
Thats 3ml per three pack which is way over £4 per ml; £4000 per litre!
Lets say 200% markup which is real mask & pistols territory, but still around £1000 per litre cost.

Add in packing overhead shipping etc etc and my logic still tells me this stuff is waaaaaaay too dear.

BTW I have bought a fair bit of it over the years because it is good, but I hate the smell of a rip off and wonder how much more would sell if it was half the price; a lot more than twice as much I'll bet!

Cheers,
martin

 

[matthewwh]

Hi Martin,

It's not the physical cost of producing the products that costs the money. Like the drugs industry it's about repaying the money borrowed for the development of the magic ingredient and then financing development of the next generation of magic ingredients.

There's also the relative benefit to the consumer of protecting potentially hundreds of pounds worth of kit. If you asked an insurance company to provide cover against corrosion for a cupboard full of Clifton's and Lie-Nielsens in a damp garage I suspect the premiums would cost more thanthe price of a couple of VCI pots. When you get into other applications for these products like museums protecting priceless suits of armour this is even more true.

Low levels of competition within the industry mean that they could charge as much as the next manufacturer, but as you can see from the price comparison above, Shield Technology haven't priced Restore at £6.74/litre which would have been the profit maximising position (as high as possible whilst still remaining the consumer's best option). Instead they have come in at well below half that and left the rest in the consumer's pocket.

Sorry if this is a bit of an economisty answer but it's not quite as simple as just breaking down the costs of the ingredients and adding a bit of margin.

Jake,

Maybe a bad choice of words, but the point is that it is discriminate in only removing the rust as opposed to being indiscriminately corrosive to the entire object.

 

[Mike Hancock]

Please do not touch this plane - I would agreed with others and let David Stanley handle any valuation or sale for you, you may have a valuable plane that you can easily make less appealing by cleaning incorrectly..A bit of WD40 just to stop any worsening but from what I can see the rusting is superficial.Look after this - a plane making genius made it!

 

[Aled Dafis]

A quick update.

I have contacted David Stanley, and they said that I'd be best advised to just clean up the existing rust with fine wire wool and oil, i.e. the bare minimum of cleaning and not to introduce any scratches on the body.

They also said that their auction valuation for the plane would be in the region of £800 - £1000.


Mathew

That Restore stuff looks brilliant, but I'm a bit too much of a chicken to try it out on this plane.


Mike

Thanks for your kind coments, the plane sure looks and feels like it was put together by a master craftsman.


I'll update again as soon as I've made some progress in cleaning it up

Cheers

Aled

 

[ivan]

It's not actually true that "all acids dissolve everything". Whilst common acids will dissolve some steel an well as the rust, this is not true of phosphoric acid. the phosphate of iron is insoluble, so a coating builds up on the surface of clean steel* which eventually stops further action. Rust which is porous continues to dissolve away, but may reveal quite deep pits, which might have looked less obvious if just oiled and wire wooled.

Coke contains dilute phosphoric acid (read label). Jenolite also, but it certainly used to be mixed with hydrochloric acid, so my first paragraph is probably not valid for that product. Phosphoric acid is fairly harmless, and can be obtained from lab chemical suppliers (see yellow pages) and 2.5l of syrupy phosphoric acid (what cancentrated is called) cost about the same as a couple of big bottles of Jenolite when I bought last.

* car bodies and other items are 'phosphated' before painting, to deter rust and improve paint/substrate bonding.