Date:         Thu, 1 Dec 94 19:48:44 EST
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "Russell G. Dushin" <dushinrg@pr.cyanamid.com>
Subject:      waxoyl vs. LPS

OK, one more time

Morgan saiz LPS has

> Ingedients: (get out your chem. 1A text)
> Aliphatic hydrocarbon, petrolium oil, Dipropylene glycol monomethyl ether

No need for the chem text, this is basic stuff.  Aliphatic hydrocarbons
could mean lotsa stuff, but here they probably mean a mixture of things
like pentanes, hexanes, heptanes, octanes, nonanes, decanes, etc,
etc....basically all solvents.  Petro oil-ahh, lube.  Anything from
vasoline to 5 wt and back to wheel bearing grease.  Probably a
crude mix taken straight from the hull of a ship.  Dipropylene glycol
monomethyl ether.....CH3OCH2CH2CH2OCH2CH2CH2OH, and isomers thereof.
Just for kicks I looked up what this stuff is used for.  Apparently,
it is used in the ink industry rather extensively (and several of the
abstracts of papers and patents I read mentioned that the resulting
ink when used in ball point pens prevents the corrosion of the ball
point-but there were other things in the ink that could have been 
responsible for the anti-corrosive properties)  One paper was
entitled "Two-component permanent-waving composition for human hair",
...so maybe this IS the magic ingredient in waxoyl!

But no mention of wax or parrafin itself, aye??

> If anyone has a waxoyl jug handy, let's compare ingredients.

Well, as I said, whatever it is it ain't on the label.  I made a
brief attempt to look up waxoyl.  Got nothin'.  Looked up 
hammerite (even though it isn't claimed to be in waxoyl, but waxoyl
is made by the same folks-the Hammerite Corporation, or something
to that effect-that market hammerite).  It turned up one reference
to a Copper-lead-bismuth sulfide complex, but it was on the
crystal forms of this stuff (which is apparently mined...and therefore
might not be considered "chemical" but rather "mineral" to  the
marketing folk who wrote the label I described earlier) and what
"point group" they fall into.  Nothing about its use.

I then spoke with an information specialist here at work...a library
dude.  He said that the composition was probably a trade secret, and
suggested the best he or I would come up with would be to find out
who makes the stuff...and we already know that.  He then went on to
tell a story about his grad school advisor that got so hung up on
the composition of a gas additive (that he couldn't find out from
the patent literature) that he had one of his students inject the 
stuff into a gc.....they basically watched peak after peak come
off for the rest of the day.  I don't think I'll be injecting
any waxoyl into my gc.

so there you have it-it's a trade secret.  But if you are "hooked on
phonics" and barely literate, you could probably figure out that
it has wax and oil in it.  If and when I find some parafin lying
around I think I'll toss it into some hexane, spray it on my 
fume hood on a metal area, park some nasty acid under it, and see
if the sprayed part offers any protection.

If it works, how much you wanna buy??

rd/nigel


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