I’ll also chime in with a vote for lighter fluid. It works great.
Acetone…(nail polish remover) works very well and it is cheap.
People, people, listen to me.
Learn what graphic artists have known for years, namely that rubber cement thinner (aka heptane) is the greatest all-purpose household solvent out there. It’s aggressive, but not damaging to plastics, metals or paper. It’s as clear as water and leaves absolutely no residue behind. And it’s cheap.
Almost forgot about this thread.
sorry to leave anyone hanging if you were wondering how I did fix this.
Thanks for all the input. This generated quite a few responses pretty quickly. So here’s what happened :
I first tried, as i mentioned, a bit of vinegar, which I let soak for a while. I also happened to be zesting a lemon in the in-between time, so I zested a bit of the citrus oils into the bowl. Wiped it out, and then tried a bit of alchohol (both the drinking and the rubbing). I put some alcohol on the stuff I was trying to get out, too. This succeeded in making it no longer sticky, but there was a residue that still hadn’t come out.
After reading the posts here, and thinking a bit, I realized that most of these solvents will disappear mostly after use, and if I rinse well I shouldn’t worry. Lexan doesn’t seem to absorb much of anything anyways. So it was either go out and buy something, or see what was lying around that I could use. Fortunately, I had a bottle of white gas which needs to be used, so I poured a little of that in, and it cleared it up pretty quick. (White gas is essentially naphtha, and it’s relatively clean so it won’t clog stoves).
Based on the advice here, if I had it around, I would have used baby oil since it’s pretty benign. And now I remember using heptane in a chem lab (too bad I forgot most of the rest of the class); I didn’t know it was available that easily, so if I need something dissolved in the future, I’ll get some.
And Handy, any others who like Goo Gone, check the link I gave earlier to the MSDS. It’s naphtha and citrus oils. If you really want to make some of your own, fiddle around with it until you like it. Sounds like they make a good profit at the American Magic Co.
well, thanks for the advice, and for helping me get rid of a fear of drinking volatile hydrocarbon stuff.
panama jack
“If you don’t have nothing, you probably have something.” – my favorite quote from my Chemistry teacher (is it any wonder I didn’t learn much?)