We’ve all got our favorite hand tools, and while the selection criteria are usually pretty subjective, it usually boils down to a combination of looks and feel. In our opinion, the king of both these categories when it comes to screwdrivers is those clear, hard acetate plastic handles, which are a joy to use — at least until the plastic starts to degrade and exude a characteristically funky aroma.
But perhaps we can change that if these experiments on screwdriver “mange” hold up. That’s [357magdad]’s unappealing but accurate description of the chemical changes that eventually occur in the strong, hard, crystal-clear handles of your favorite screwdrivers. The polymer used for these handles is cellulose acetate butyrate, or CAB, which is mostly the same cellulose acetate that replaced the more explode-y cellulose nitrate in things like pool balls and movie film, except with some of the acetate groups replaced with a little butyric acid. The polymer is fine at first, but add a little UV light and over time the outer layer of CAB decomposes into a white flaky cellulose residue while the butyric acid volatilizes, creating the characteristic odor of vomitus. Lovely.
In the video below, [357magdad] takes a look at different concoctions that all allegedly cure the mange. TL, DW; it was a dunk in household ammonia that performed the best, well ahead of other common agents like vinegar and bleach. The ammonia — or more precisely, ammonium hydroxide — works very quickly on the cellulose residue, dissolving it readily and leaving the handle mange-free and looking nearly new after some light scrubbing. None of the other agents came close, although acetone did manage to clear up the mange a bit, at the cost of softening the underlying CAB in a process that’s probably similar to acetone smoothing ABS prints.
As for the funky smell, well, the results were less encouraging. Nothing really got rid of the pukey smell, even a roll in baking soda. We suspect there won’t be much for that, since humans can detect it down to 10 parts per million. Consider it the price to pay for a nice-looking screwdriver that feels so good in your hand.
Wire brush works well.
Or steel wool. I usually use both, steel wool on the wide smooth areas and a wire brush to get into the corners of the flutes. Rescued many a high-quality antique screwdriver that way.
I’ll have to try ammonia though, maybe it won’t leave me with the stinky powder gunk all over my hands.
Wait, that’s the same butyric acid that people seem to love the taste of in Hershey chocolate, no?
or Parmesan cheese ..
Or rancid butter IIRC. Thanks for the tip!
It smells more like a rat lived in your toolbox. If it is the same chemical compound, it’s likely masked or altered by the other chemical compounds in the whole of the product.
also, I always wondered wtf that smell was. I thought I’d let my tools get into something bad over the years and moves. Guess it was just time.
Many chemicals have multiple, widely varying applications. And the odor/taste/performance of very low concentrations can vary dramatically. If memory serves, traces of skatole (odor of sh*t) are added to some perfumes. Likewise musk, which is quite unpleasant in high concentrations.
Thanks, now ai know why I hate Hershey chocolate, it tastes awful to me.
This is great information! I really wish he had found a way to cure the odor though. When I open my small tool box in th house the wife always complains of the odor. Fun fact: If you drop one of the old Craftsman screwdrivers on a hard floor point up and handle down it will bounce almost back to your hand. Try it sometime!
you’ll put your eye out!
Screwdrivers with that sort of handle are usually the cheapest possible, certainly not my favorite.
I have my Dad’s IBM-supplied CE toolkit from the late-50s and 1960s, which which he used to service IBM 650 and also System/360 mainframes. Certainly not the ‘cheapest possible’ rather they are at the top of the scale in quality. And yet, the screwdriver handles smell like vomit just like the ones described in this article.
Its not just clear (black, yellow mostly but red, blue,and green) and not just cheap (as in low quality, have seen it on snapon drivers, vaco (don’t know if, they are still around or good anymore, great vanadium steel, well many years ago). Humidity seems to be the cause imo.
Agree, mostly. My favorite screwdrivers are some Kleins where the acetate has a rubber coating.
You might consider sealing in the odor with clear spray paint.
Humidity must contribute to the degradation process. I live in Arizona and have had screwdrivers with clear handles like that for decades without a trace of that whiteness or the odor. Either that or some people buy really, really cheap screwdrivers.
Same here on all counts, except I do experience the smell a little bit. But, I have about 50 screwdrivers in one drawer, some of which are likely 50 years old or more.
Same here. I stay in South Africa (generally very hot weather), and in 50+ years have never seen a screwdriver look like that…cheap or otherwise. Just last week I threw away one of those hard plastic cheapies you used to get with some appliances or tools back in the 70’s/80’s (and this one was almost as old as I am), with a crystal clear yellow handle.
must admit I have never been tempted to smell a screwdriver. So I suppose the treatment will work fine for my collection.
There’s no weird kinda close sniffing with deep inhaling required. It took me a while to figure out that the smell was coming from the screwdrivers. It’s mild in my case, but it’s certainly detectable.
Stinky tools… weird. I don’t know why but I’ve had those types of screwdrivers from various old Craftsman sets for decades and that never happened. I guess I just have good screwdriver hygiene
Come on, guys!
Good hygiene should always be observed when screwing around.
And I thought it was common sense that you clean your tool when you’re done…
; )
I’ve had a few of the moldy looking stinky ones too.
On a couple of side notes.
I’ve had wood chisels (from late 1950’s?) with those translucent amber handles and probably a dozen years ago, the handles just crumbled while laying in the toolbox.
Then I also have a mid sized Dead-Blow hammer that was made from a black plastic/vinyl? of some sort. After a few years, the entire outer plastic, from handle to head turned a bit mildewy looking. I cleaned it off best I could. But it just crumbled like something from the Andromeda Strain movie.
Back in grad school, it was 95% chemically pure ethanol and distilled water. Dunk the screwdriver in it, pour the liquid into a glass, add orange juice to taste. At this point, you won’t care about the tool, But the screwdriver will tasre fine.
Standard or Metric?
oh yeah, the butyric acid just becomes ethyl butyrate, which smells of pineapple…
Humidity and it seems if kept closed with other like tools one in bad shape spreads to others. I thought it was a type of mold so I’d scrub in the sink and then wipe with acetone. Regular use seems also to retard it, or does it just come off each time on the hand?
I just scratch them clean with a fingernail under running water.
Never use a wire brush unless you want them looking bad.
The kings of screwdrivers have a brushless motor inside. Period. Or at least a handle with a freely rotating end.
PS: The screwdrivers I inherited have wooden handles. Cool looking, awesome smell, even worse to use than these plastic monstrosities.
We have quite a few of the old red PB Swiss screwdrivers that started to smell after a few decades. The bad part is, it’s not that easy to find the one or two bad ones in a drawer full of screwdrivers, you would have to put them in ziplock bags for a while and see if you can detect them. If you just sniff on the handle it’s impossible (for me) to detect the smelly ones.
I’ve heard that PB Swiss at some point started using vanilla scent in the plastic to try and fight against the bad smells.
I give them a bath in the ultrasonic cleaner. Always worked for me and the fuzz never came back. I cannot smell anything on them either, but since getting covid I can’t smell much anyways, so take that for what its worth.
I’ve often described the smell of my VACO duh-4 collection as plastic vomit. LOL!
see https://cool.culturalheritage.org/waac/wn/wn24/wn24-1/wn24-102.html for some comprehensive info on degradation of plastics
I’m way more interested to see if anything can be done with the surface of all those 2010-2015ish “soft touch” rubberized surfaces that all seem to have the plasticiser coming out so they are sticky.
I have a bunch of perfectly usable things with handles or other surfaces that you are required to touch to actually use these items, that now just sit there doing nothing because they are basically covered in tar.
Some of the things are too useful to retire, and I have wrapped the surface in plastic wrap. Others I have taken the (hours of) time to carefully disassemble, scrape, solvent wash, and paint to make them useful again.
It would be great if there was an easy way to remove it or at least stabilize it.
I know that surface treatment exploded in popularity at that time, but I wonder if the process has actually improved so future stuff wont always be covered in tar after 10 years…
I’ve “treated” a few of my own devices that had that crummy rubberized surface.
What I did was to use a knife blade to scrape the grunge off. Not sharp, but not dull either. Just that stage where you think “I really ought to get the sharpening stones out and sharpen my pocket knife.”
The rubber stuff peels off pretty easily – like the stuff on the scratch-to-win lottery tickets.
Yeah, you’re going to end up with some scratches in the plastic housing. So what. It is still better than having sticky crap all over the gadget.
Supposedly, it takes gasoline to dissolve that stuff. Which is doable, but I would not like to soak my hands in gas for an extended period like it would take to scrub something down in a bowl. Best find some thick rubber gloves or something.
Yeah… Not exactly an option for plastic parts, which is the whole point.
The soft touch surfaces aren’t a problem with metal parts, because the surface would have already peeled off.
The problem is plastic parts with a soft touch surface that has already broken down.
I mean, the guy used it on plastic, although I imagine you have to get the soft touch stuff off and then immediately rinse the underlying plastic with something and then wait for the remaining gas to dissipate.
Dear HaD. Pretty please continue putting TL:DW summaries.
Please.
Please.
^ this, this, a thousand times THIS.
I do not want to watch a 20+ minute video of some dude deliberately prolonging the answer for monetisation purposes, 99% of these videos could be <30 seconds or indeed just a damn sentence in a HaD article.
Those who enjoy these things or have nothing better to do can watch the full video.
That’s exactly the way we see it.
Quick read for those who want to do so — and a link to a video we enjoyed if you’re in that mood.
At Hackaday, you get both!
You can mask the awful smell by putting a few drops of peppermint oil on a cotton ball and placing it into your toolbox. I used to cringe each time I opened the toolbox. Now it is not bad at all. Use a different essential oil if you don’t like peppermint.
I love the smell. Reminds me of being in my dad’s workshop surrounded by a ton of old Craftsman tools he inherited from his dad. I know lots of crappy tools use the same plastic but it just reminds me of quality hand tools. I’ve never once compared it to vomit even though I know it’s supposed to smell like it. I never figured out why but one of my classrooms in highschool smelled like it too, you could smell it in the hallway leading up to his room but it smelled the strongest inside. I don’t know if it was the teacher or the actual room but it wasn’t that offensive to me, just strange.
Yeah, bit of that “scrap” oak plank that has waited few decades for it’s use in the attic and linen seed oil ..
Regarding the reference to cellulose nitrate, my Dad spent 58 years making spectacle frames and recalled the period they used to make them out of ‘nitrate’ for a while. They finally stopped using the stuff when an old guy was poking his fireplace, and his ‘specs disappeared in a bright flash, leaving a spectacle-shaped black mark on his face. And this wasn’t exactly the first time. Nitrate is all well and good until it ages; then it gets interesting. Fun times!