Uses for Vinegar

[Norm Harris]

Here is something that I discovered over the weekend. It may be old news but I have never seen a reference to this particular vinegar use on the forum.

I have used vinegar for years to remove corrosion from aluminum, things like the jaws on my whisker pole and the like. However, I never tried it on bronze. I needed to free up some sail hanks and didn't have any penetrating oil on board. so for lack of a better solution (pun intended) :D I tried vinegar on a well soaked rag. It worked great!

I have since used to clean two bronze winch handles and now they shine like new and the locks and handles both work without seizing up.

[pwilling]

Great -- I have some balky sail hanks too, think I will try it on them. I use it all the time for mild steel etc. -- I dumpster-dove an 8" crescent wrench sorry open end adjustable wrench in the harbor a little while ago, totally crudded up, frozen, covered with flake rust from life in a fishboat bilge . . . soaked it in vinegar over night, blasted the gunge off it with a scratch wheel, oiled it, and it works fine. Considering its a) cost and b) life expectancy, I'm not proud. Vinegar smells great, makes me think of pickles coming on soon -- won't kill you or the harbor, love it.

[Todd Bradshaw]

The lower half of the topsides on our trimaran were painted black and would quickly build up those embarassing "hard water stains" that you hear about on TV commercials. After fooling with a lot of expensive "marine-grade" miracle cleaning compounds that wouldn't even touch the stuff, we (as in-my wife - the one with a PhD in chemistry) found that a quick wipe with vinegar, every month or so would clean it right off. The boat smelled like a really big pickle for an hour or so, but it really worked great. Sure am glad I thought of it....

[Figment]

is it true that a little cup of vinegar will trap gnats and mosquitos?

[Scott Rosen]

Does it matter what kind you use? I'm thinking of the basic white vinegar that's sold in quart bottles.

[paladin]

Use it to wipe down interiors of boats to keep away mildew.......mix with some red pepper, sugar, and a pinch of mustard and use it in pulled smoked PORK.

[N. Scheuer]

Vinegar is good for cleaning up after fiberglass work with polyester resin.

Moby Nick

[Norm Harris]

Scott,

I used the least expensive that I could find. I noticed, when searching the supermarket shelves the house brands had the same level of acidity (5%) as the brand names like Heintz.

[NormMessinger]

A bottle of glacial acetic acid with about an ounce remaining was taking up space in my "darkroom" so for kicks I mixed it with epoxy hardener. Wow! Great reaction. fizz, foam, boil. Suggests why vinegar can be used to clean up epoxy.

--Norm

[Nels]

Vinegar also dissolves epoxy (before it sets!) It's great for cleaning your brushes and your hands. That way you don't have to use many "serious" solvents - you don't need to put any on your hands! smile.gif

[RGM]

I like the idea of using vinegar for epoxy clean-up. I'll have to try that one out when I get home. I can hardly wait. I've got some de-rusting to try out also. Here's another use for vinegar, etching galvanized steel so paint (primer, then top-coat) will have a much better chance of sticking to it. Pwilling, another name for the "Cresent" wrench is "wrench of many sixteenths" or of course the metric version, "wrench of many millimeters".

[ 06-24-2002, 06:27 PM: Message edited by: RGM ]

[Bob Cleek]

Just picked up a supply to replenish my stock. Costco... two one gallon bottles of white vinegar, 5% solution, three bucks. I use it for cleaning any calcification. It works great for taking zinc oxide off aluminum. I finally caved in and started using it to wash my hands after epoxying instead of acetone, although I like the high you get from acetone better. Oh... yea, and I've been told you can douche with it!

[Figment]

Crescent Wrench: Device used for stripping nuts and bolt heads. Also quite adept at damaging elements adjacent to object being hammered. A boat should be equipped with one crescent wrench for each 5' of LOA. Storage in a tool box or other logical location is prohibited.

[NormMessinger]

Gosh, Bob. You've always recommended products you've had extensive experience using. I assume vinegar is no exception.

I don't think acetic acid disolves epoxy as much as it changes the composition of the hardener so it will not react with the resin, based on the reaction I reported above. Mixed with uncatalized resin it just makes the resin milky. So, what is the product the remains on your skin after using vinegar as a cleanser? I don't know so I'm not inclined to trust it.

(No spell checker in NetScape either. Oh well.)

--Norm

[Steve Souther]

Another use of viniger (apple cidar), is to provide relief from sun burn. Don't use flower to mix it with for a poltice (holding it to your skin), though. I found out the hard way: it draws the heat from your skin and cooks the flower. Then you end up peeling it off your burnt skin. Baking powder is best.

Steve

[Wild Wassa]

Returning to the use of vinegar, for epoxy cleanups. White wine vinegar, surpassed both white and brown vinegars. It gives a quicker breakdown of the hardener and gels the resin better. One down side is that it's not cheap. About 6x the cost of the basic white vinegar.

Norm, the glacial acetic works well I bet. 3%? Do you use the one with the indicator? In fact, it probably isn't such a bad idea.

Warren.

[ 06-24-2002, 06:13 PM: Message edited by: Wild Wassa ]

[Peter Duck]

I've used vinegar successfully for removing uncatalysed epoxy, but not with all brands. for removing rust, use molasses! Steep the rusty article in the molasses, or brush it on thickly, and let it do its work for a couple of weeks. You end up with a rusty mud on the steel article, which can be washed off under a hose. Hey, Presto! Clean steel!
Crescent wrtenches are known in Oz as "Australian National Fits-all spanners"; yes, they are excellent for rounding off nuts!
Peter.

[NormMessinger]

Warren, the glacial I used was a small amount, undiluted, 100% or some mol, how ever it is measured. And, no I would use cheep white vinegar if I were so inclined.

--Norm

[Concordia..41]

Thank you Peter, I was about to chime in and say (for us at least) the great crescent wrench debate was settled once and for all when an English chap called it a "spanner wrench." BTW - he also informed us we were a bunch of bloody idiots who didn't know which end to hold, but that's another story...

It'll be a spanner wrench for me. Same rules apply. :D

[LisaS]

You can also pour it on those pesky weeds the grow into the near invisible cracks in your walkways and it will kill them.

[Bernadette]

Many years ago a Box JellyFish wrapped its tentacles around my entire right leg...the first aid treatment at the time was methylated spirits. The meths was placed along our beaches but wasn't often there as it was quite often drunk by alcoholics. In any case the stuff was useless for Box jellyfish stings. Nowdays Vinegar is used and it never gets drunk!!! Bernadette.

[AndyFarquhar]

I wouldn't go too crazy with the vinegar or any other acid because of the possibility of electrolytic problems. The last thing you want to do is create a giant lead-acid battery. Below the waterline the acid will only improve water's electrolytic properties. Think of a lead keel and the many dissimilar metals in an acidic solution. I suppose that you could try to nuetralize or buffer the acid before it causes any problems.

If you're using an acid you may want to think of boric acid because it kills so many little nasties that eat wood.

Regards

Andy Farquhar

[pwilling]

On vinegar and flies: I have a taste for the Japanese rice vinegar, and every fruit fly in the house will find his/her way into the jug in the summer time. They drown happy apparently.

On vinegar in the bilge: if you ever get those fuzzy white whiskers around any of your iron fittings -- floor straps, keel bolts etc. -- they are about pH 10 or so. You can neutralize it for clean-up with vinegar. (THEN figure out WHY you are getting whiskers . . .)

On vinegar and steel clean-up: I forgot a piece in the soup one time, left it there a couple weeks. When I finally rescued it, the vinegar had etched the steel about 1/64 deep, and the grain of the steel stood out dramatically. I like to scrub it right out of the soup, with very hot water, then it dries quick and won't re-rust before you hit it with something to protect it. Most stuff will rust in the air after vinegar cleanup.

[Norm Harris]

Andy,

Copius amounts of fresh water will neutralize the acid. It is an especially good idea to thouroughly and quickly wash aluminum that has been cleaned, because residual vinegar will cause the aluminum to re-calcify.

[Tom Dugan]

Most stuff will rust in the air after vinegar cleanup. So don't set your vinegar bottle on your tablesaw and leave a vinegar ring behind.

DAMHIKT :(

-T

[Ed Nye]

Vinegar, one of my favorite products. Use it for all sorts of things. Outboard motors used in saltwater, salt up, duh. Especially the 4-cycle ones. That Costco vinegar, at a buck a gallon is just the ticket. Take off the prop, put the vinegar in a big bucket (enough to cover the cavitation plate and let her rip. You can't imagine the amount of strange stuff that comes out of that motor.
Ed

[Sailman58]

A trick that I learned from a stitch and glue boatbuilder: keep a spray bottle of white vinegar handy. It's great for cleaning up after epoxy work: tools, hands, the works.

Ron

[Ed Harrow]

Somepeople even use the stuff for cooking and eating... :D

[Kermit]

I buy the Costco white vinegar and dump it into a garden sprayer. Sprayed on the driveway weeds, it kills 'em good. Just do it on a sunny day with another day like it predicted for the next. I even tried it on a patch of crabgrass and on thistles. Dead.