Don, I’m sorry to not have an answer for your problems but it seems
to me that you are dealing with a super-saturated solution. I mean
that, at boiling temps, the water is able to hold more of your
chemicals in a disolved state. After it cools down to room temp it
has lost some of its “holding” capacity and a certain amount of the
chemicals precipitate out of the liquid. That would explain why the
clear liquid works well at room temps. It is still a super-saturated
solution but just at a lower temp. I’ve had similar issues with
home-brewed pH Minus pickle. Hot it’s a clear liquid, cool it down
to near freezing and it forms a crystaline matrix at the bottom of
the pot. Heat it up again and the crystals go away.
A question I have is where to get the TSP? I’ve called several
places and gotten lots of runaround. I’m sure I’m missing something.
Hope this helps some.
Don’t worry about the precipitate in the prips flux the solution is
saturated and you will boil of the water anyway.
TSP probably can be found at paint stores. It ha been restricted
from most household cleaners in som states but not all. It is
available here in Texas… You may also see “TSP not” this is a
replacement sodium metasilicate that does not contain phosphates.
There was a discussion about this a while back. My feeling is that
the metasilicate will work fine too.
A question I have is where to get the TSP? I've called several
places and gotten lots of runaround. I'm sure I'm missing
something. Hope this helps some.
many states have regulations regarding phosphate content in
detergents and cleaners. for that reason TSP is often offered in the
form of alternate phosphate free chemicals, labeled as TSP, which are
not actually tri-sodium phosphate. Hardware and paint stores are
often this way, but equally often, unless state law actually
prohibits the sale of the stuff, you may still find the real stuff
displayed less prominantly. In local Home Depot stores here in
Seattle, for example, eye level displays show all the stuff labled
with names like “TSP-90”, or others, which are not actually TSP. But
down on the ankle level shelf I can often find a plain carbboard box
of actual TSP.
Your other option of course, is any decent chemical supply house
TSP has a number of uses beyond deteregents, and the chemical supply
companies can always sell you some, Note that for purposes of making
flux, you can use any of three closely related chemicals. tri-sodium
phosphate is TSP. Just as good is di-sodium phosphate or mono-sodium
phosphate. The second two are generally only available as chemical
reagents, rather than hardware store chemicals, but they work just as
well for prips flux. In fact, I’ve sometimes suspected that
mono-sodium phosphate may even work slightly better. Haven’t
actually run comparisons side by side, but memory of a couple batches
made with that stuff, when I happened to have some are that it was
somewhat more trouble free in application.
I just bought TSP from builderdepot through Amazon. It was sold in
either one pound unit, eight one pound units or 12 one pound units.
It was shipped very fast (less than a week). I bought the 12 one
pound units because I am so sick of looking for it. Overkill I
guess but I use it at school. The ingredients listed on the box are Trisodium Phosphate…that’s it. Made some prips a few days ago
and it works great. Hope that helps.
Just wanted to add to Peter W.Rowe’s comment about finding TSP at a
chemical house. If you can’t find Citric Acid for pickle, or if the
price is too high in the canning section of the grocery store, try
that same chemical house. You might get both chemicals from the
same place.
Only a thought - haven’t tried it myself. I find TSP at the paint
store and Citric Acid is used in the food industry, so our
university has access to it.
Judy in Kansas, who is making her lists for Tucson!