Tip for airbrush users

[daggerlee]

Just picked these up at my A.C. Moore (It's an arts and crafts store).



It's useful to store solvents in to squirt into the cup of gravity fed airbrushes. Heck, if you're spraying the body, storing the paint in one of these wouldn't be a bad idea(make sure you pre-thin it though). You can even store lacquer thinner in them, since they are made of low-density polyethylene which doesn't react to the solvents in lacquer thinner.

I found them in the candy confectioner's section of my A.C. Moore, don't know if it varies by store. Two bottles for $1.88

[tonioseven]

Thanks Dan! Sound like a plan!

[clatescivicr]

Atleast in my area in the newspaper and/or our "pennysaver"(mini classified catalog) A.C. Moore usually have a 40% coupon ;

[djmr2]

Hey dagger

i just went out to buy one, couldn't find the same ones as you.. the only i could find was a big one used for cake decloration, looks the same.. hopefully it'll be safe for lacquer thinner and won't melt..

Michaels doesn't have crap!

[daggerlee]

Cool! If it's squeezable, then it'll probably be ok.

[flyonthewall]

Good idea! Don't know of anything like that in th UK, will have to have a scout around!

[djmr2]

DAGGERLEE,

hey u seem to know your stuff about solvents, and chemistry and all that junk...

whats the differences between LDPE and HDPE? i've seemed to misplace my 1st year chemistry stuff..

my bottle is HDPE, hope it doesn't melt!

[djmr2]

ahhh nevermind

i found the info i needed, HDPE is more chemically resistant that LDPE
so it should be good!

[daggerlee]

LDPE and HDPE are the same chemically, it's just the density that's difference. They're both polyethylene, which is if I remember correctly, just extremely long chains of C2H2 swirled together. It's different from polystyrene which has a styrene sticking out of the carbon backbone (styrene being very similarly shaped to the benzen ring structures of toulene and xylene and other organic solvents) which is why polystyrene melts whereas polyethylene doesn't.

LDPE is more easily deformed (i.e. squeezable) than HDPE, and not as strong.

[djmr2]

wow, that totally reminds me of First year chemistry!
are you studying chemistry by any chance?

[daggerlee]

I took a Materials Science course last summer. One of the topics was Polymers, which I learned a lot about (and forgot most of it.) You'll be pushing the extent of my knowledge if you want to know anything more in-depth.

I do, however, have a nice encyclopedia on a disk thing they gave us, so if you have any specific question I'll try looking it up on there.

[Guido]

Hi Dan, nice idea. Never seen those things in Europe, but it's always good to keep your eyes open, everywhere you go, to run into these model solutions!

Thanks for sharing!

Guido