Contact cleaning

[EddieM]

Tetrachloromethane, to give it its modern name, is very much best avoided. Very nasty stuff.

 

[JohnW2]

Tetrachloromethane, to give it its modern name, is very much best avoided. Very nasty stuff.

Indeed, but that 'avoiding' is not too difficult - since, as I wrote ...

.... but it is to-all-intents-and-purposes no longer available.

Kind Regards, John

 

[winston1]

Thanks for all the replies.
The problem is the switch is the kind that was never intended to be opened up and would be annihilated in the attempt. So realistically I won't know what's actually happened inside and it's certainly not practical to wipe the contacts.
Maybe I'll try a quick squirt of the specialist WD40 stuff, but more likely I'll just have to treat the whole assembly as a service part. Maybe I won't even bother with the good-money-after-bad thing with the WD40.

WD40 is not a contact cleaner, so not suitable. It is Water Displacement version 40.

 

[SUNRAY]

Same here. It was also freely available as "Thawpit", a popular and widely-used domestic stain remover. I suppose it is probably still available, in a very restricted fashion, to the likes of chemical laboratories (and maybe for some industrial processes), but it is to-all-intents-and-purposes no longer available. It certainly ceased to be used as a refrigerant, in fire extinguishers and as a cleaning agent/solvent a very long time ago.

Kind Regards, John

Thawpit and Dabitoff were carbontetrachloride, 'carbontet' was usually carbontetramethane - details may not be accurate but hopefully close.

 

[andykent]

WD40 is not a contact cleaner, so not suitable. It is Water Displacement version 40.

Read it again. Read the whole thread.

 

[JohnW2]

Thawpit and Dabitoff were carbontetrachloride, 'carbontet' was usually carbontetramethane - details may not be accurate but hopefully close.

Carbon tetrachloride and tetrachloromethane are two names for the same thing, the latter being the more commonly used name these days.

"Carbontetramethane" really makes no sense, since methane (CH4) is already 'carbon tetrahydride', so the extra 'carbon' is redundant - and, in any event, all of these solvents were chlorinated (or, at least, halogenated), which "carbontetramethane" would not be.

Kind Regards, John

 

[SUNRAY]

Carbon tetrachloride and tetrachloromethane are two names for the same thing, the latter being the more commonly used name these days.

"Carbontetramethane" really makes no sense, since methane (CH4) is already 'carbon tetrahydride', so the extra 'carbon' is redundant - and, in any event, all of these solvents were chlorinated (or, at least, halogenated), which "carbontetramethane" would not be.

Kind Regards, John

There you go, I'm not a chemist so can only go by what written on the label and it is many years since I've handled any and been able to read the label

 

[JohnW2]

There you go, I'm not a chemist so can only go by what written on the label and it is many years since I've handled any and been able to read the label

Fair enough (and I'm no chemist, either!) - I suspect that you may be 'mis-remembering' a label which said "tetrachloromethane" - which, as I said, is another name for carbon tetrachloride. However, 'mis-remembering' is something I am only too familiar with (increasingly so with increasing age!), so I would never think badly of anyone for that

Kind Regards, John

 

[SUNRAY]

Fair enough (and I'm no chemist, either!) - I suspect that you may be 'mis-remembering' a label which said "tetrachloromethane" - which, as I said, is another name for carbon tetrachloride. However, 'mis-remembering' is something I am only too familiar with (increasingly so with increasing age!), so I would never think badly of anyone for that

Kind Regards, John

Misremembering what?

 

[crystal ball]

WD40 is not a contact cleaner, so not suitable. It is Water Displacement version 40.

WD40 make more than one product

 

[mattylad]

I still have a few spray tins of Tetrachloromethane in the cellar from when I worked in t' cotton mill, the fitters used it a lot then.
As the tins must be some 20 years old I'm hesitant to push the spray button now lol

 

[crystal ball]

I had a gallon can of a solvent used in the shoe industry before it was banned, walked in the garage one day and was greeted by a miasma of solvent, the bottom of the can had rusted through

 

[winston1]

WD40 make more than one product

That may be so, but the product they make called WD40 is a water displacement liquid not a contact cleaner.

 

[EddieM]

Carbon tetrachloride and tetrachloromethane are two names for the same thing, the latter being the more commonly used name these days.

"Carbontetramethane" really makes no sense, since methane (CH4) is already 'carbon tetrahydride', so the extra 'carbon' is redundant - and, in any event, all of these solvents were chlorinated (or, at least, halogenated), which "carbontetramethane" would not be.

Kind Regards, John

Indeed carbon tetramethane would be an isomer of pentane (neopentane) or more correctly 2,2 dimethylpropane.

 

[JohnW2]

Indeed carbon tetramethane would be an isomer of pentane (neopentane) or more correctly 2,2 dimethylpropane.

Thanks - that rings some very dusty decades-old bells!

I have to say that to a simple-minded non-chemist, 2,2-dimethylpropane seems to be a very 'contrived' (and, at least to me, 'not very helpful) name. If one looks at the structure of that, the most 'obvious' thing to call it would be tetramethylmethane, wouldn't it (since that's really 'what it is'!)?

Kind Regards, John