Stagepin cleaning formaldehyde exposure

Gage

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I know this sounds like the ramblings of an insane man, but hear me out...

I have a large quantity of old conn/Union style 20A 2p&g male/female cord ends. I had originally planned to throw them out, most are either damaged, or covered with 40+ year old gaff residue. I came across the box today and was reminded that even incredibly old gaff residue softens and releases really well when thrown in boiling water for a few minutes.

I ended up throwing about 20 of them in an old electric pot outside, and left them to boil for about 30 minutes. That aspect ended up working great, they came clean with almost no effort, and I was able to save the majority with no damage.

I went to put another batch in the pot when it finally crossed my mind "these conn style connectors are bakelite aren't they?". Now I already knew bakelite contained an incredible amount of formaldehyde, but the thoughts hadn't strung themselves together until that moment.

So thats what leads my to my concern and question. Did I release and as a result inhale a ton of formaldehyde from creating this stagepin stew? It certainly was not a high enough concentration for me to smell the formaldehyde if any was released at all.

The pot in question was regulated thermostatically to 250°F, and the water was at, well the temperature of boiling water of course. In theory that is at least 100° below the point where bakelite begins to offgas.

Curious to hear what everyone has to say about this. Unless proven absolutely safe. This is probably a little experiment I won't dare to repeat.
 
Formaldehyde in high enough concentrations to bother you in an acute exposure, you certainly would have smelled.
Most of my generation had probably 1000x acute exposure in high school biology lab.. or in my case in Vet School.

Chronic exposure from outgassing of paneling products indoors would worry me much more than boiling a pot outdoors. Stay upwind and don't purposely inhale, but
it sounds like a decent cleaning method as long as it doesn't degrade the material strength.
 
I'm not sure Union Connectors were ever made of Bakelite. Seems to me they went from that weird fibre directly to plastic. I've never seen a pin connector exhibit the same characteristics of what we think of as Edison connectors, lamp sockets, etc. Stay safe.
 
Seems to me they went from that weird fibre directly to plastic.
I always thought that weird fibre was fiber reinforced bakelite. Usually with asbestos and other materials used to make up the "fiber" portion. I could be wrong though.

Regardless I'm probably going to give it another try, albeit with a bit more caution. it worked incredibly well. I'll throw some pictures up in a bit.
 
Photos as promised

The "stew"
IMG_20230208_115920.jpg


Finished product
IMG_20230208_134956.jpg


Once out of the pot they required a quick wipe-down with a damp rag and some dry time in the sun. The material doesn't seem to be affected, but ill keep this thread updated if they suddenly start crumbling or something. If this all works out I think it will be a great low-effort way to throw a bunch of grungy spares back in circulation.
 
Photos as promised

The "stew"


Finished product


Once out of the pot they required a quick wipe-down with a damp rag and some dry time in the sun. The material doesn't seem to be affected, but ill keep this thread updated if they suddenly start crumbling or something. If this all works out I think it will be a great low-effort way to throw a bunch of grungy spares back in circulation.
I don't believe that's bakelite. Probably more Polyester resin or epoxy or phenolic resin impregnated with fiberglass strand a way long time ago they were embedded with the with asbestos fibers in Phenolic or Bakelite. Honestly those don't look that old (To me) late 70's through 90's (which is probably ancient for many here...)
I think the Formaldehydes you are thinking about would have been in "Thiourea Formaldehyde Resin" or Urea-Formaldehyde That was also reinforced with Asbestos. It's commonly used as the binder resin in MDF, Plywood, blah, blah, blah.
 
Well, that's good to hear. looks like I've found my new method for cleaning old gaff residue off of items in bulk.
Or just used a citrus based cleaner. It's what we used to clean off cable coming back from rentals covered in Duct Tape. You can buy a gallon of Zep Heavy Duty cleaner on Amazon for like $10-15. Just wear gloves citrus cleaners suck the oils right out of your hands... but they smell good.
 
Or just used a citrus based cleaner. It's what we used to clean off cable coming back from rentals covered in Duct Tape. You can buy a gallon of Zep Heavy Duty cleaner on Amazon for like $10-15. Just wear gloves citrus cleaners suck the oils right out of your hands... but they smell good.
I had been using a citrus-based cleaner. It worked well but it was reacting badly with the dye in some plastics. It's still my go-to for normal cleaning, but I figured trying this wouldn't hurt. Didn't want to waste the good stuff on things that likely aren't going to see the end of a cable for a long while. That and the ability to do so many at once without any real scrubbing (provided you can find a really big pot).
 
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Bakelite is a trade name for phenol-formaldihyde or phenolic plastic. All same stuff. As to boiling it in water at atmospheric pressure it's doubtful that you could decompose the stuff and release formaldihyde. Anyway, if you did, you'd smell it.
 
My thought, too, was that formaldehyde *smells bad*, and you'd know...

Urea-Formaldehyde is most often seen in the foam of the same name, I think.
 
Photos as promised

The "stew"
View attachment 23899

Finished product
View attachment 23900

Once out of the pot they required a quick wipe-down with a damp rag and some dry time in the sun. The material doesn't seem to be affected, but ill keep this thread updated if they suddenly start crumbling or something. If this all works out I think it will be a great low-effort way to throw a bunch of grungy spares back in circulation.
Nice! Now all you need to do it hop on McMaster and buy a big bag of flag terminals.
 

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