A vitamin bottle with a hole in the lid for a cheap
artist's atomizer for spraying Pripp's flux on my silver work
to prevent firescale...
Very simple really…kept trying to find something to put my
Pripp’s flux in (check the archives for the recipe and use). The
artist’s mouth atomizer works best for the flux, spray bottles
clog. I use a glass vitamin bottle and drill a hole in the
plastic lid and insert the mouth atomizer (ceramics places and
good artist’s stores should carry them…). This way my Pripp’s
is always ready to blow onto whatever work I’m doing…although
did drop one a few months ago and glass breaks…Dave
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Very simple really....kept trying to find something to put
my Pripp's flux in (check the archives for the recipe and use).
The artist's mouth atomizer works best for the flux, spray
bottles clog. I use a glass vitamin bottle and drill a hole in
the plastic lid and insert the mouth atomizer (ceramics places
and good artist's stores should carry them....). This way my
Pripp's is always ready to blow onto whatever work I'm
doing....although did drop one a few months ago and glass
breaks....Dave
Alan, and others… I wrote a fairly wordy (ME? wordy? You gotta
be kidding) article on pripps flux and it’s use as a sprayed on
flux (including recipes for the stuff if you need) about 4 years
ago. It’s been reposted to both Orchid and to rec.crafts.jewelry
several times since. If you can’t find it in the archives,
Andrew Werby also has including it in his collection of some of
my various little writings that he’s got on his web site at
http://users.lanminds.com/~drewid/PWR_Pripps.html It must have
been a fairly effective article, since a few of the folks who
got it then have now become avid and loyal users of those little
mouth atomizers with pripps flux for preventing fire scale on
silver…
The bottle I use for mine is a little weird, but works very
well. At some point, (maybe they still do) Kerr marketed a
little alcohol torch that amounted to a flexible plastic bottle
with a lid fitted both with a tube for a wick and another little
bent vent tube. Squeezing the bottle directed a stream of air
over the wick from the vent tube, so this was used as an alcohol
lamp, and squeezing it gave you a brief pinpoint flame. Supposed
to be for polishing waxes. I never found it much good for that,
but that tube for a wick just perfectly fits the feed tube for my
mouth atomizer…
Like you all really needed to know that… (grin).
Of greater use is this little tidbit. If any of you find the
mouth atomizers hard to use (takes a bit of extra coordination
and good lungs) you can also use external mix air brushes, which
operate on the same principle. I say “external mix” meaning the
sprayed on substance is mixed with the air stream either in front
of the whole brush handle, or right in the spray tip, which
means the thing is easy to clean. A normal internal mix airbrush
will get quickly clogged with solidifying flux. And for you
scroungers, the cheapest such airbrush I’ve seen is the chinese
import version offered by harbor freight. It lists for something
like 12 bucks, but now and then they put it on sale. I got one
for six a couple months ago. Now, airbrushes have their own
problems… Like that plastic air line you have to be careful
not to melt… But they do give a nice fine uniform spray. The
harbor freight one comes with two bottles. Keep one full of
plain water, and when you’re done with the soldering operation
you used the flux for, switch the brush to that plain water jar
and shoot a little through it to keep the tip clean.
Hope this helps.
Peter Rowe