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Do you guys REALLY use naptha?

Messages
11,579
Location
Covina, Califonia 91722
Material Safety Sheets

Pilgrim said:
I refer to the safety info on the sheet It appears to be stuff that you should only use when wearing protective hand coverings, and a NIOSH approved respirator for organic solvent vapors. (Of course, you'll see these warnings in relation to just about any petroleum-based solvent, but this is mighty darn volatile stuff.)

Now, over my 55 years I've managed to handle with bare hands just about any solvent that you can name - carbon tet, leaded and unleaded gasoline, mineral spirits, kerosene, rubbing and denatured alcohol, and certainly some I can't remember now. But we're a lot smarter now than we used to be about the cumulative effects of this stuff, and it just pays to be safe with it. And my brain cells may be declining fast enough without my adding more solvent exposure to the equation.:(
+++++++++
Wow! My dad used to use Carbon Tetra-chloride on some stuff, and he always said never get it on your skin or breathe it in. (If your wire set for the spark plugs were wet, brush this on the rubber and it drives all of the moisture out! ) Anyway, material safety sheets can have some biased stuff in them, but solvents are tricky, like you said cumulative effects! So gloves, good ventilation, treat as highly flammable are all good ideas. And by biased they err towards caution. The whole "Lead" uproar 20 years ago, caused many manufacturing jobs to flee California. Items like valve guides and rods were made out of a steel with a small lead percentage in it as a natural lubrication and the steel had some types of softness that made the machining / cutting tools last a lot longer. The state came in and demanded the cuttings be treated like hazardous waste, sealed, vacuums air cleaners, etc. It might as well have been radioactive. The manufacturers told the state the lead is part of the steel, bound to the steel and not easily leached out or seperated from the steel and posed no risks. Heck you could eat this steel with out the lead going into into your body's bloodstream. But the state would not budge and all of the manufacturers first tried non leaded steel but the cost and the constant re-tooling made it non viable. So they moved out of state and California lost hundreds of jobs, maybe thousands.

Solvents are described in "Heat" terms sometimes, cool, warm amd hot. It referes not to tempurature BUT to its ability do disolve or unlock chemicals. The example is like putting a variety of solvents in styrofoam coffee cups as you get closer to "hot" the quicker and more completely the cup disolves into the liquid. MEK, Methyl Ethyl Ketone is pretty "hot" in those terms.

Also as they get "Hotter" they tend to evaporate quicker, so in industrail uses they are often used in areas that are refrigerated to cut down on the evaporation. For many welding type jobs the metals must be completely degreased to weld safely, and get a good weld, and these solvents get used in degreasing metal used in manufacturing fighter jets and such.

Iif you use Naptha or others let it dry well and for a lengthy time in a warm dry place so all traces of the solvent disappear.

MEK was a bane for industrial disposal here in California, they did not want it to be stored any wheres once it was used.
 

thefedorastore

A-List Customer
Messages
421
Location
Prosser, WA til fall
Naptha Today

I am doing yet another hat today, an open road, old a dirty. I use naptha for spot cleaning too, it works. This one today has paint on it and the liner was filthy. I remove the liner before soaking the hat, and the liners always clean up nice with woolite. After the Naptha, continued cleaning on the hat sometimes requires some woolite, or woolite carpet foam. It all works great, and doesn't break down the felt.
 
Messages
10,933
Location
My mother's basement
Pilgrim, I'm hardly an expert, but my limited experience indicates that naptha does no immediately apparent damage to leather sweatbands. I can't say what effect it would have on leather if used repeatedly, or if some sort of damage might show up later (I kinda doubt it will), but I have cleaned several hats of various vintages in naptha and none of their leathers show any sign of harm from their exposure to it.
 

feltfan

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,190
Location
Oakland, CA, USA
I'd be less concerned about ruining the leather than
I would be about having dirt in the liner or on the leather
(or the leather stain or liner dyes) run into the felt, staining
the felt?
 

Mr. 'H'

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,110
Location
Dublin, Ireland, Ireland
Pilgrim said:
Hmmm. Does a naptha bath require removing liner, sweatband and ribbon?

Hmmm....

This is interesting, so it's OK to soak the leather too??!! :eek:

What if there is a plastic liner over the headliner? :eusa_doh:

And how long should it be left in the solution? [huh]
 
Messages
10,933
Location
My mother's basement
feltfan said:
I'd be less concerned about ruining the leather than
I would be about having dirt in the liner or on the leather
(or the leather stain or liner dyes) run into the felt, staining
the felt?

I've yet to see that happen. Here's hoping that one (or more) of our resident professionals will weigh in. Art? Steve? John? Anyone?
 

Fedora

Vendor
Messages
828
Location
Mississippi
I have heard you can leave the hat together and soak the whole thing. But, I was worried that the sweat would bleed on the felt, although I have heard it would not do so. But, when you are working on other folk's hats, nice vintage ones, I do not take the chance. I strip the hat down prior to cleaning. I do know, I had a leather jacket cleaned recently, by the dry cleaners, and it came back smelling of naptha. I had to air it out for a week, outside to get rid of the smell. But, it all went away, and the jacket did not bleed on the liner. Regards, Fedora
 
Checked the old thread

I re-located an older thread on page 11 titled "Question about Cleaning" started by photosbyalan back in 2005. Three pages of info on cleaning using naptha, denatured alcohol and white gas. Check it out. Very interesting for the adventurous.

Now a question. Anyone have any experience with Mike the Hatter in Cleveland?? I sent in, what I think is a Resistol San Antonio, that was missing it's sweatband. I stretched it up a size and sent it in for a new leather. I paid $12 for it at a vintage shop. Should be a good lid.
 

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