Any idea what this copper grease/paste stuff is? Got but a tiny bit rubber on my finger and feeling extremely light headed and stupid, a little sweaty
too. It's in the bolt holes of my diffusion pump, i rubbed it off on some paper towel and washed my hands right after i touched it.
Unfortunately i cannot post pic because on phone and pic exceeds sizes....SupaVillain - 14-7-2015 at 15:09
Its like a grease or sudge possible thread lubricant of aome kind maybe contaminated by other chemicals used in the vacuum experiments of the past
user. Bert - 14-7-2015 at 15:10
It sounds like that would be a copper bearing anti seize compound, if it was applied to bolts that need to not vacuum weld or heat weld to the holes
they thread into.
I wouldn't EAT it, but have had it smeared all over my hands, arms, fingers, face & etc. while doing steam fitting and boiler work, or wrenching
on engines. Never found it to be psychoactive yet-
However, depending on what you used the vacuum pump for? Maybe it dissolves or carries other "things".
SupaVillain - 14-7-2015 at 17:25
I havent used the vacuum yet it's been sitting near me for a few months and no problems until i touched this copper sludge stuff. I cant ask the ebay
seller what might be in it because i believe they were a liquidator simply reselling items and not really knowing the past of its usecrazyboy - 14-7-2015 at 17:27
That's a pretty serious reaction, I can't imagine that it was caused solely by a lubricant unless you had an allergic reaction. I would imagine most
lubricants would be petroleum, graphite, ceramic, or soap based; none of which should cause those kinds of reactions.
My guess is either that someone sucked up some really nasty stuff at some point which contaminated the grease, or you had an allergic reaction to
something.Sulaiman - 14-7-2015 at 18:21
I have some Lithium grease, for bearings, which is green,
the symptoms are similar to lithium poisoning? http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002667.htm
seems unlikely to absorb a toxic dose so easily though.Ozone - 14-7-2015 at 19:28
Sounds like dinitrophenol (type) poisoning. SupaVillain - 14-7-2015 at 23:39
In reply to other posts...
Yea it's strange to me because ive had my hands all over the inside of the pump, inspecting all the conical oil "skirts", getting its oil all over my
hands and such, never had a problem in the least but i only noticed this weird copper stuff now and i touched it to see if it was solid as a part of
the metal flange or something and after a few minutes there goes all my normal sense of beingSupaVillain - 15-7-2015 at 00:09
Here is a pic of one of the bolt holes, same stuff is in each hole on the flange. Im either allergic or the compound is contaminated with something
that's hazardous, although this is outside of the O-ring so it wouldnt have been directly connected to chems inside of the vacuum chamber most likely.
It has made no visible changes or any amount of irritation on my skin where i came in contact with it. I will be cleaning my pump thoroughly soon...
[Edited on 15-7-2015 by SupaVillain]subsecret - 15-7-2015 at 09:21
Anti-seize is more adhesive than that, and it's odd that it's just sitting there like a puddle. I think it's just copper particles and mineral oil,
and maybe some heavy ethers.
