I'm wondering what, if any, desiccants people use around their tools and in their tool boxes and stuff like that. Sure, it's prudent to oil or wax tools, but a desiccant should also help.
Any suggestions for a desiccant natural or otherwise?
I live in a natural desiccant -- the Sonoran desert. Humidity around 10% most of the time.
Not sure how to export it though
Welcome to Yuma.
We call that snowbird season.
I was just reading (and I forget where...) that some kitty litter is actually a dessicant. Check the brand, but the picture that was with the article was the "clumping" kind of kitty litter. I know not if that is the difference between bentonite and dessicant kitty litter.
If it is a dessicant, you should be able to "recycle" it by placing in an oven for a bit. I don't know if a microwave will allow the humidity to escape or not, but a regular old-school oven should have a vent.
Best of luck!
Locally here in Finland we have a cat litter brand that is made from silica gel. Very useful as a dessicant and not liked by cats. It is large whitish crystals and can be regenerated in oven (temperature 120 C, 2 hours, vent open). Unfortunately it doesn't have moisture indicator (cobolt cloride) so the regeneration must be done more often.
seismo malm
Tidy Cats crystal cat litter.
Any dessicant needs to be periodically replaced, or renewed by heating. My solution is to run a dehumidifier year-round in the shop.
I live in a relatively dry climate, but if necessary I'd use the silica cat litter for closed containers, and a dehumidifier for the shop in general.
No matter what desiccant you use, it will be most effective in an airtight enclosure.
Chris
On Tue, 5 Jan 2010 00:09:45 -0800 (PST), xparatrooper
Actually, I use clumping kitty litter for my cat, so I've got lots of unused litter on hand. I'll seal some in a porous bag and give it a try.
Thanks.
Silica gel. If you don't want to fool around with the kitty litter suggested by others, this site sells various size bags of it.
Most equipment that you buy from China comes with little bags of the stuff, and I keep them for uses such as you suggest. When I go out demonstrating blacksmithing, it often seems to rain on my parade, so I try to put my tools away in plastic bags or pails and use those bags of silica gel (both the freebies and some from Jake's) to keep thing rust free.
Personally, I prefer to maintain a non-condensing environment in my shops. It's not just the hand tool in tool boxes, its the tools like the table saw, engine lathe, etc., etc., that need to be protected, too. If I could not keep the shop warm and dry, I think I'd use small light bulbs inside my main tools. Even keeping them just a couple of degrees above the ambient temp means that condensation, which occurs when the temp drops, goes someplace else.
Pete Stanaitis
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snipped-for-privacy@teksavvy.com wrote:
snipped-for-privacy@teksavvy.com wrote the following:
Rice is a natural dessicant, that's why it is used in salt shakers to keep the salt from clumping.
That stuff is silica gel, which is just what you need. Guys into firearms storage use it all the time.
willshak wrote in news:ON6dnfHFLtYkOd7WnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@supernews.com:
Just spread the last of the rock salt from last year on the driveway. The rice kept it from forming a big clump quite effectively.
We've got ice thanks to rain changing over to snow. :-(
Puckdropper
On 06 Jan 2010 03:25:11 GMT, Puckdropper
Any particular type of rice recommended?
snipped-for-privacy@teksavvy.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
We just got the cheapest stuff from Walmart. If you spend any more than $2 on enough to handle a 50# bag of salt, you might as well just buy the salt when you need it. (It was a lb or two.)
I'm tempted to say it was a long grain white rice.
Puckdropper
The old-fashioned solution was a block of camphor (like moth balls, it made an odor and dwindled, but it outgassed and made a moisture-repelling film on the nearby objects).
Dessicants are good for a short period of time, until they reach their full moisture saturation (then, they're in need of regeneration). Calcium sulphate (white granules) with indicators (probably of the cobalt chloride type, blue-purple when dry, turning pink when saturated) is the best solution; bake it dry when it indicates pink.
Like lots of folk, I operate a dehumidifier; it can remove 50 pints (per day? or maybe per week?) and only needs occasional emptying. When my humidity-indicating weather gizmo shows 60 percent relative humidity, I empty the dehumidifier (the full-tank condition shuts it down, so it never operates more than a day or three from when it's emptied).
A box of sidewalk caulk. WD40 works too.
I always use uncooked white rice in my salt shakers, same thing as my mother and my grandmother used...
I can tell you from my cooking experience that white rice absorbs water *much* more readily than brown rice. I'm not sure why -- I assume that's because there's no bran on white rice -- but I know that it takes three to four times as long to cook brown rice as white. After simmering for fifteen minutes, a potful of white rice is done cooking, with all the water completely absorbed, but it takes 45 minutes to an hour for that to happen with brown rice.
Sidewalk caulk, eh? I didn't know they needed to be sealed. Do you just do the edges, or the cracks as well?
Chris
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