RE: QuickCast and Swelling

From: Rob Connelly (Becton Dickinson & Company)
Date: Monday, June 19, 1995

From: Rob Connelly (Becton Dickinson  & Company)
To: RP-ML
Date: Monday, June 19, 1995
Subject: RE: QuickCast and Swelling
Sounds like the classical symptoms of water getting in.  One possible cause is water 
getting into your solvent.  If alcohol is exposed to humid air for any significant 
length of time, it will quickly pick up water.  You will not have 98% purity any 
longer.  If this "moist" alcohol gets inside, I have seen just the symptoms you 
describe.

When I clean QC parts, I use a bottle of 99.9% Propanol that has had VERY few and 
short duration openings, and pour it into a squeeze bottle.  This minimizes its 
environmental exposure.  I then squirt the part with the bottle during my cleaning.  
Any runoff is discarded.  I also use the propanol as the solvent/lubricant for "wet" 
sanding after cure.  Works great - kind of a pain, but gives that wet-sanded finish 
without the dust and without the water.  I don't have any problem with alcohol that 
gets into the vents and drains, so long as I use these procedures.  Incidentally, 
our lab is in North Carolina, where the humidity is quite high.  Nor do we have any 
environmental controls.

Just my $.02...  Good luck.

- Rob


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