The manatee crew took one look at the thread title and they all jumped up and down screaming no Tetrachloroethylene on the boat...it makes Nuclear Orange..that’s what the manatees thought the thread was about. They call the orange hand cleaner, orange juice and carb or brake cleaner Nuke Orange.
Cleans like a Nuke bomb but kills you by creating phosgene.
Phosgene ? What ?.so they start screaming about Brake Cleaner and TIG welding.
I had no idea what they were so upset about but they kept tossing the can around yelling Phosgene and gas attack. So here is the whole story.
I always use acetone to clean my
aluminum before TIG.
I bought a can of Brake Cleaner...well...for my brakes on, my Isuzu Trooper but I brought it back to the boat by mistake. That was mistake #1.
I bought a can of Brake Cleaner that contained TCE. Mistake #2.
I didn’t read all the stuff on the back of the can Mistake #3.
Very, very lucky for me, I didn’t use it to clean anything before welding.
A welder at Brew Bikes was patching Diesel Tanks and he used brake cleaner rather than carb cleaner. The heat from the TIG turned the TCE into phosgene.
He got sick. Real sick. ER to Intensive Care sick. Thousands of dollars in tests. Lots of Doctors. There is NO antidote to phosgene.
He was very lucky he didn’t die.
So now some brake cleaners are advertising they contain no TCE. What they might have is n-Hexane..a powerful nerve toxin easily absorbed into the body.
Acetone is not healthy either.
TIG
work on any part cleaned with Brake Cleaner can be fatal.
For now, I’m not doing TIG on any tank unless I’m building it new.
I hope people will pass the word. Read the back of the can.
Just because you can buy it off the shelf, doesn’t mean it’s harmless.
My manatee crew took my credit card to pay for their ORCA POWER Halloween party because I owed them a
medical consult and they saved my life yet again.