Hi I’ve been reading regularly on this forum for a while now and I was wondering if the diaper filler had passed the long term test. I mean do you guys still use the diaper filler or has it proven to be a short term trend? Thanks
…I DOO? …Yes,that’s about all I use anymore,it’s just more superior to anything else I’ve ever used.Sometimes I add some D.E,(THANKS to Mr.Noodle’s other brother, Mr. Noodle)or milled fiberglass,but the Exo-filler does it all.It also reduces the shrinking in my molding as well. …Mr poor buckets cabocel and Q-cell must feel lonely these days.Herb
Hey Herb, What color or degree of transparancy does the diper filler turn when it kicks?
…Clear,if you mill it up enough.If you leave it matted and don’t allow enough saturation, it will appear like a clear-milkywhite marble look.Herb
Thanks for the follow up Herb, I was short in stock of Q-cell and it was hard for me to get it, but now I’ll only have to go to the supermarket. Yeeeeeeesss. Ciao, Coryell
Howzit Herb, I’ve got a question for you, do you have young kids that are still in diapers or do you buy the diapers just for the filler. The reason I ask is I can buy a Lb. of q-sel for $5.00 and that goes a long way. Seems that diapers could cost more ( haven’t had any babies around for a long time) and having to cut the diapers and mill the stuff seems like a hassle. What’s your take on this. I know you enjoy the mcgyver stuff but when I need filler I would rather just pour it out of the container instead. Keep up the good work. Aloha, Kokua
Howzit Kokua, …I have a 3 yr old daughter just coming out of diapers(Keani-wild thing).I keep the diapers that the tab comes off of from time to time.One diaper milled will just about fill a 3 lbs coffee can.Krups coffee grinder will do nice size batches to go! …At my level it’s worth it.For the strength and durability,it is undefeated.Herb
Howzit Herb, I see your point, a 3 lb. jar is a good amount, sounds like some pretty absobant diapers. Aloha, Kokua
Hey Herb, So how do you mill it? Rich
…Chop it up with sissors,then mill it with a high speed drink mixer in a stainless milkskake cup or just the krups grinder.Herb
…When the larger diapers are wet,and not leaking ,but maxxed out,they wt. in at 5 lbs+,The diapers also swell somewhere in the size of a softball++ !! …Another thing about this filler, as it expands and absorbs fluids(be it water or resin)it suspends the fibers evenly,and puddles off the excess liquid.The Exo-filler expands so it fills more area,than it’s predecessors.Also,the silica gel integrates with the polyester to give it a whole new chemical structure that is tougher all the way around. …Thickens resin …fiberfills …clear …fibers suspend on expand.fills better. …silica+resin makes for stronger glue. …can be used with epoxy, with equal-lateral results. …pigment/tints friendly. …Mjxing and use are the same as any regular fillers out there.Herb
Herb, a month or so ago the Wall Street Journal ran an article on firefighter’s using diaper fiber wetted down and sprayed on houses in a foresfire setting. Seems to work there too. May save a few more lives. I always wanted to contact the WSJ and tell them about your application. I’ll try to find the article and send it to you. Rob Olliges
There’s this firefighting stuff called baricade that was mentioned here about a year ago. http://www.swaylocks.com/cgi-bin/discussion/archive.cgi/read/18962
,Yeah Rob,let me know,I’d love to read it.Herb
Herb: Gel Used in Diapers Can Shield Against Fires By Susan Warren 1,213 words 23 June 2003 The Wall Street Journal B1 English (Copyright (c) 2003, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.) JUDITH WITHERS watched in horror from the desert floor as a raging wildfire consumed the mountainside outside San Diego where her home stood. “It looked like an atomic bomb blast up there,” she recalls of that day last summer. She returned to the charred landscape a few days later and was shocked to find her house standing and unscathed. “It looked like God picked up my house, and the fire blew by, and then he put it back down,” she says. It wasn’t divine force that saved her house. It was a man-made gel, one of a family of superabsorbent plastics known as polyacrylates, which are probably best known for the vital role they play in disposable diapers. Inside a dry diaper, the material is fibrous and grainy; it becomes a thick goo when wet. Unknown to Ms. Withers, firefighters had slathered her house with a premixed version of the superabsorbent gel, like a giant wet blanket, in a test of its fire-fighting potential. After an especially vicious fire season last year, when 88,000 fires burned 815 structures, Western fire agencies have begun to add superabsorbent gels to their toolboxes. But the gels, made by a handful of companies, aren’t ubiquitous yet: They aren’t being used to fight the fire in Arizona that destroyed 250 structures near Tucson late last week, says Eric Neitzell, spokesman for the interagency fire-management team battling the blaze. Current fire forecasts predict another harsh season, due to lingering drought unrelieved by recent rains, which have produced more vegetation for fire fuel. Some makers of superabsorbents are selling do-it-yourself kits for homeowners, costing about $70 a gallon, or $500 for a 2,000-square-foot house. Capt. Patrick Shanley of the Los Angeles Fire Department has started featuring the gels in his training sessions on wildland firefighting. He likes to dip his finger in gel and then hold it over the flame of a roadside flare. “It just feels like you have a bunch of goo on your finger – there’s no sensation of heat,” he says. When saving a house, firefighters try to build a firebreak around the house, using chain saws to clear brush. As the fire nears, they might spray the house with a detergent-based foam, which holds water in suspension, and then hunker down to spray the surrounding flames with water from hoses. But these foams don’t last long and have a tendency eventually to evaporate or slide off the walls. In contrast, the new gels tend to stay put. And they help lower risks for firefighters. Firefighters can spray gel on a home in less than 15 minutes and then drive away. Fire-suppressing gels were first introduced in the 1970s for dousing wildfires. These early gels were quickly supplanted by chemical fire retardants. But in recent years some chemical retardants have raised environmental concerns. Government tests of the newer gels so far have found them to be safe. In the early 1990s, Richard Rawls, of Roanoke, Va., who ran a company that sold firefighting foam, got interested in superabsorbent gels, which can hold up to 1,000 times their weight in water. “It’s kind of magical,” he says. Later, as a consultant for a manufacturer called Chemdal International Corp., he dabbled to make a gel suitable for firefighters, one that would mix easily, hydrate quickly and disperse smoothly. He experimented in his backyard, blowtorching gel-coated plywood. “My neighbors probably think I’m a weirdo,” he says. Germany’s BASF AG, a big maker of superabsorbents, bought Chemdal in 2000, part of an effort to expand the material’s use beyond diapers. Mr. Rawls, who obtained licensing rights to the Chemdal gel, now works with BASF marketing it to fire agencies and training firefighters. But even with corporate backing the gel didn’t catch on immediately. It wasn’t until 2001 that Mr. Rawls persuaded Chief Dan Lang of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to test his product, a superabsorbent fluff packaged in bags meant to dissolve in water. The idea was for firefighters to drop the bag of the gel, which BASF calls Fireout/Ice, right into a fire truck’s water tank. But the test was a mess. When firefighters grabbed the bags with their wet hands the bags dissolved, spilling the dry fluff onto the ground – where it mixed with water puddles and created pools of slime. “We had firefighters slipping and falling. They had this slime all over their engine,” recalls Chief Lang. Mr. Rawls tried premixing the goo and pumping it directly into the tanks. This time, it saved Ms. Withers’s home. Chief Lang says the state fire department will be doing more tests of the gel this year. In one test, it will dump the gel from airplanes to test it against wildland fires. Last summer, Battalion Chief Gerry Brewster, of the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, had a chance to try a superabsorbent gel when the Pines fire swept through the area’s canyons, mountains and valleys, destroying 39 homes in three weeks. “We were getting our butts kicked,” he recalls. The fire was so hot and moving so fast that firefighters couldn’t get in to protect many of the houses in the wooded backcountry. “It wasn’t a survivable situation,” Chief Brewster says. Firefighters moved ahead of the flames, gelling houses and even some propane tanks, which send up spectacular towers of flame when superheated in a fire. Then they drove away with their fingers crossed. The gel-coated houses survived, and the gel-coated tanks stayed cool. “Overall, we had a lot of success with it,” Chief Brewster says. Some concerns linger. “It’s slippery,” says Alice Forbes, assistant director for operations at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service. “It’s just like stepping on a bar of soap.” That is a big drawback for firefighters scrambling on rooftops. With some brands of the gel, cleanup is a major headache. Sprayed over an entire house – windows, walls, porches, roof – the gel is slimy at first. Eventually, it dries to a nearly invisible film. Add water – such as rain – and the stuff comes back to life, oozing out over porches and driveways and sliming the house all over again. It takes weeks or months to wear off. When fire rampaged through their neighborhood outside Jackson Hole, Wyo., George and Barbara Erb were among the first to have their house gelled in a test two years ago. Their 2,800-square-foot log house survived, and insurance paid to have the gel power-washed off. But then it rained. “This white gooey stuff started coming out between the logs,” Mr. Erb recalls. Powerwashing ruined his roof, which the insurance company replaced. He had to have the log exterior refinished. Still, the long cleanup beat having to rebuild a burned-down house. Ms. Withers reports that the gel washed right off her house and into her charred lawn. One unexpected benefit: The grass grew back fast because the gel helped the soil retain moisture, she says.
…Printing this one!Herb