The other day I got an email from one of my recent customers who said that her new whistle “smelled of smoke”. Hrm. Now, I don’t smoke, and the whistle was made in a smoke-free shop, and shipped in a sealed tube. I also wipe each whistle down with rubbing alcohol, and wash in soap and water before it ships. So, what was she smelling?
I know that both brass and copper give off distinctive odors, and the whistle has a brass head and copper surround. It was assembled using a special cyanoacrylate (super-glue) adhesive formulated to stick to Delrin (acetal) plastic, but the whistle was also warmed for hours to make sure that none of the acrid fumes of that material would remain.
I’m guessing that what she was smelling was a mix of the copper and brass odors, but hey, if anyone out in C&F-Land is an nose Doc or similar, or has special knowledge in issues olfactory, maybe you could advance a clue?
I suggested a short soak in dilute white vinegar solution, and maybe a wipe-down with oil of wintergreen, which generally totally kills smoke odors. Other suggestions are welcome. Anyone else notice these smells around metal whistles?
Is that Dr. Mike’s glue? I use it and have never noticed a smoky aroma. Just a typical CA glue smell.
Maybe your packing materials had a bit of an odor, or perhaps the package sat in a smoky room at the post office. Or maybe your customer is simply overly sensitive.
Dusting the whistle inside and out in baking soda, letting it sit for a day or two, and rinsing may help (?). You may want to try this on a scrap piece of brass before you recommend it to your customer.
Hmmm… well, I think about the packing materials, and that’s about the only culprit possible, as the whistles are packed in brand-new closed tubes from the Office Max, and I’ve never noticed a smell of anything but cardboard and glue from them.
HOWEVER, I do use foam pipe insulation as a surround on the ends of the whistle to keep it from being bounced around inside the tube in transit. Now, most hardware stores no longer allow smoking inside, but I bought this last batch but one, from a farm store down in Kearney, MO, and I know that some of the folks there smoke in the “back room”, and the storage for the pipe insulation is fairly close by. Maybe that’s it. Well, I’m out of that batch now, and the latest came from Home Depot and has no smell at all that I can discern.
Let’s hope this was isolated to that one batch of foam. Nobody else has complained, so maybe it was.
Cheers,
Bill Whedon
Hmmm, I have an absolutely spectacular ability to detect smoke, even years after it was last present. Seriously. I have an exemption from driving government vehicles–they have to pay me to drive my own car. Just in case somebody smoked in theirs sometime in the past.
So, I’ll be happy to test your whistles for you, Bill.
It might take me a few months to test them well enough to be sure there’s no smoke, but I’ll be happy to do it in the interest of science and good business practices.
The copper bottom on my teakettle does smell a little smoke-like. Sort of. Metals have a distinct odor. And so does Delrin. The combination of the Delrin and copper, perhaps?
Both Copper and Brass use “Sulfer” as an antioxidant when founded/forged. I “assume” the sulfer smell reminds her of the smell of the match that lights the tobacco and not the tobacco smoke itself. Cyanoacrylate has a mild acid as a catalyst/evaporative agent. This may be reacting with the sulfer content in the metal salts(?)
Dunno about whistles smelling of smoke, but unpainted Sweetones stink a bit. It’s a horrible metallic smell I don’t get from brass or nickel plated instruments…
