handyman tip for squeaks n shit

TAE

All you have is now
I grew up in housing construction and have been involved in all sorts of projects in my life. Many years ago I was doing a remodel and had to pull the doors off in this bathroom. Understand I have been pulling doors off since I was @ 8 years old and sometimes those dam hinge pins can be a mother...Not this time..... man they almost came out by themselves as I held the pins in my hand I felt a coating on them and recognised that "feel" it was the same sticky wax "feel" I would get when I would install a new wax toilet ring..I'll be darn! That's a great idea...so flash forward some 20 years later....I have kept a cup that I squished of 1 toilet ring into and it's still got another 20 years of use left...I think I paid $1 for it...100's of hing pins....we don't have squeaky doors in my house.....if you have a squeaky door ...this shit is the shit!

Anyway the little plastic tub I kept this stuff in was getting cracked so I decided to put it in a new container...tried to melt it down in a microwave...never seen anything like it......we're talking about 4 ounces...I could not get that stuff to heat up or melt...the dang stuff is crazy Over 2 minutes and it wasn't even warm...it's witchcraft I tell ya!

So I decided to see what in the heck this stuff is made of....I know originally they were Bees wax but this ain't no bees wax....

So....

In searching I came upon the article below.........pretty good list of things you can use this VERY inexpensive awesome lubricant and rust preventing protectant for...Here's y'all's goes... NO MO SQUEAKS!

I hyperlinked the article to the first sentence below if you want to go there to read it...

An old carpenter taught me this trick a few years ago. We were installing doors in a State Police barracks remodel and he pulled out of his box a piece of wax ring used for toilets.

He had melted it into a tuna can; he placed all of the screws needed for the hinges into the wax, point first. This wax helped the screws go into the solid wood doors with ease.

Wax rings are made from a petroleum product, and other ingredients that each manufacture holds as proprietary. The petroleum is shipped to the factory and stored in liquid form at 170 degrees Fahrenheit until it is needed. The petroleum is then mixed with the other chemicals that will solidify at room temperature and are then poured into aluminum molds coated with a release agent.

Wax ring molds are made in different thicknesses and can be purchased quite cheaply. come in standard 3- or 4-inch sizes. The aluminum molds are cooled with water until the wax turns solid. The molds are then flipped upside down, and the rings fall onto a belt, where they are moved to a packaging area then package for stores.

Some more uses for this wax that I have used and uncovered are;

Drawer slides. A thin coat of wax on the wooden rails makes the wood drawers on an antique bureau slide smoothly.

Un-stick windows. Use wax to lubricate the sashes of windows that want to stick.

Free rusted nuts. Help loosen a rusted nut by coating the threads with some melted wax. This will lubricate the bolt’s threads.

Wax wood. For wood that needs to look good but takes no wear such as exposed ceiling beams, heat equal parts wax, linseed oil, and turpentine. Do not mix over open flame as the turpentine will ignite. Apply with a brush or rag while the mixture is still warm.

Keep metal from rusting. To prevent rust caused by moist air, brush on a solution of wax melted into turpentine. Buff it with a towel to create a thin, hard coat.

Coat hand tools. Before storing rub all metal parts and wooden handles with wax, this will prevent rust and degrading of handles.

Lube screws. Rub wax over the threads of screws to make them drive easier and quietly into wood.

Wax concrete counters. Give a sealed, dark concrete countertop a natural luster by rubbing melted wax over the surface with a cloth. Let it dry and then wipe.

Preserve patina. Seal a copper sink by rubbing it with softened wax and buffing off the excess with a rag.

I’m sure there are many other uses and you may want purchase an extra wax ring and make use of the lubricating, preserving, and useful properties.
 
Toilet ring wax? I've always found it sticky beyond belief - get a little on your fingers when placing the toilet in, and yuk, it takes a lot of work to get it off. I would think candle wax would be better.
 
Wait. I thought we were going to learn why it didn't melt :D

I preserve my bathroom door squeak' -makes a handy relative humidity gauge. It's free!
 
Toilet ring wax? I've always found it sticky beyond belief - get a little on your fingers when placing the toilet in, and yuk, it takes a lot of work to get it off. I would think candle wax would be better.

Yep the sticktivity of it is what makes it last a freeking looooong time...You do a squeaky door pin hinge once and it's not squeaking for many many years...Acetone does clean it off post haste when you are trying to get it off yer fingers...

The little latching spring hinge thing in my ram 1500 driver door was getting a little rusty noisy sure I could have put lithium grease but this stuff does the job way better IMO 20 years of using it on a myriad of things that squeak or rust
 
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Wait. I thought we were going to learn why it didn't melt :D

I have never seen anything rebuke the nuke so well...If we ever get get hit with a nuclear bomb I'm gonna rub that shit all over me....:eek:

Seriously it looks like it is supposed to melt at 170 fahrenheit so I suppose I could plop it in a pan over a fire and melt it but 4 oz in a microwave for 2 minutes and not even warm...whats up wid dat? weird stuff fo sho....
 
but 4 oz in a microwave for 2 minutes and not even warm...whats up wid dat? weird stuff fo sho....
I think in a microwave there needs to be some amout of water in whatever you're cooking.
 
I think in a microwave there needs to be some amount of water in whatever you're cooking.

WE HAVE A WINNER! Thanks RFR!

So the specially formulated "proprietary" magic goo has no water or other "polar" molecule in it to move around generating heat thus it doesn't get hot and also explains why it works so well at inhibiting rust and corrosion...no water no rust... Cool! Crazy stuff this weird science world we live in...

I kind of sort of understood how a microwave worked with regards to a magnetron in there moving molecules which cause heat..never really connected the water required with it but then again most plastics don't heat up in of themselves when you put them in a microwave. My goo is kind of malleable plastic ....

So your post pushed me to google the topic and down the rabbit hole I went.... The article below was pretty informative for non nuclear swizzlesticks like myself.

Microwave heating is largely caused by the changing electric and magnetic fields (i.e. the "microwaves") which are emitted by your microwave oven affecting polar molecules. As the direction of the electric field changes over time, the polar molecules (often, of water) attempt to follow the field by changing their orientation inside the material to line up along the field lines in an energetically favorable configuration (namely, with the positive side pointing in the same direction as the field lines). As these molecules change direction rapidly (millions of times per second at least), they gain energy - which increases the temperature of the material. This process is called dielectric heating.

However, water is not the only polar molecule in the world. You can test for yourself that most plastics don't heat in a microwave while most glass and ceramic objects do. So, a microwave oven melting your plastic bowl has more to do with it over-heating your food than over-heating that food's container.

EDIT: After doing some research to address some questions brought up in the comments to this post, I've found some very interesting information about why glass and ceramics heat up in the microwave which I will share here.

First of all, according to this article from the Royal Society of Chemistry so-called "earthenware" ceramics are fired at categorically lower temperatures than "stoneware." As a result, a non-negligible quantity of water molecules remain inside the now-seemingly-dry "earthenware," while the vast preponderance of water molecules in "stoneware" have been removed as a result of the higher firing temperature. The conclusion is that earthenware ceramics heat up in the microwave because they have the polar water molecules in them which undergo dielectric heating. On the other hand, stoneware (and apparently porcelain) will not heat in the microwave due to their respective lack of water molecules. Either way, I still wouldn't recommend microwaving your grandmother's porcelain china to find out.

Second, glass' molecular structure is apparently locally tetrahedral but without long-range order (i.e. it is an amorphous solid) which means that there tend to be spaces in the molecular structure of the glass to accommodate ionic impurities (mostly sodium, see this explanation of how glass is made to get an idea of the chemicals that go into the final product). These impurities are only loosely bound and are able to move around within the amorphous structure of the glass. These ions of sodium or other elements have a net charge (they are ions after all) which means that the oscillating electric field produced by the microwave oven causes the ions to jostle back and forth, gaining energy. The idea is very similar to the rotations of polar molecules (which have an electric dipole but no net charge), but the mechanism is different (namely, translational energy rather than rotational energy).

So in summary, ceramics apparently heat up because they still contain some water, while glass heats up mostly because of the presence of semi-free, charged ions.
 
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