Hairspray as PCB Laquer

I like to keep the underside of my Veroboard projects from tarnishing.

In terms of effect on compnents and resoldering, does anyone know if hairspray is an acceptable substitute for commercial PCB spray laquer?

It is sure a lot cheaper.

Robert Stevens

And, for completeness, has anyone tried commercial PCB spray lacquer on their hair?

--sp

Sno-o-ort :-D ...Jim Thompson

Krylon clear acrylic spray doesn't have any phosphor additives so it's difficult to inspect for adequate coverage. Otherwise, it's the same.

That's *not* recommended!

On a sunny day (Fri, 20 Mar 2015 11:41:10 -0400) it happened JW wrote in :

Jimmy is probably more into sniffing glue. ;-)

I didn't know about the additive for UV florescence, might be an interesting effect in nightclubs (like I go to any....).

Wow, black light hair spray. Groooovy!

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Hair spray comes off with water.

Ummm... no. Besides, it would be pointless now as most of my hair is gone. When I had hair, my favorite mix was mostly mineral oil with a little olive oil, bees wax, and cheap perfume added. The hair "holding" ability was in the bees wax. While attending college, I was mixing the stuff up in five gallon buckets and selling it at a nice profit, that was still less than commercial hair grease. Phosphors would have been a cool addition, but orange or blue hair wasn't fashionable at the time. I had to drop this sideline and switch to hand cleaner after a rather messy oil spill.

Why would one intentionally put gunk in one's hair? I wash hair to get it clean. I'd like it to stay clean.

Were you ever 18 years old? Every hair had to be in the correct place or you would be considered disheveled or worse. Oh wait... there's nothing worse.

Do you recall Brylcreem? and "The greasy kids stuff"? Grease was in.

Rolling back a few more generations, there was "Macassar Oil" for the head, and "antimacassar" to protect the furniture: One of the claims for Macassar Oil is that it stimulates hair growth. Grease has been in fashion since mens wigs went out of fashion.

Somewhere around 1965, alcohol solvents replaced some of the grease as the hair tonic of choice. On application, they evaporated, and left a thin residue of grease, which held the hair in place, but did not look like a lube job gone awry. For marketing purposes, it was part of the "natural look" in both mens and womens fashions. The "natural look" was intended to make one look like they did not use artificial means to improve one's looks, but sold more cosmetics, concoctions, and clothing, than any fashion campaign previously. There were several hair tonics that claimed to "penetrate" the hair, but actually just evaporated, leaving nothing behind.

At some time near the end of the "natural look" craze, someone clever invented "pH balance" shampoo. What this shampoo did was refuse to form foam or suds, except over a very narrow pH range. This was carefully calibrated to NOT coincide with the natural or typical pH value of the scalp, sweat, or even rinsed hair. In order to obtain suds, one had to first apply some of the shampoo, rub it into the hair, rinse, and then re-apply another load of shampoo. That was great for doubling shampoo consumption. However, that wasn't enough. The color of the shampoo was changed to be invisible in one's hands, so that it was difficult to tell how much was being dispensed. The viscosity of the shampoo, and the shape and size of the bottle were designed to dispense a giant blob of shampoo and resist all attempts to dispense smaller amounts. The bottle was also made to be top heavy so that it would tend to fall over and gush its contents onto the floor. Oh yeah... some shampoos add vitamins, fragrances, and flavors. We now have at least 2 generations of Americans, that have never seen or used real shampoo.

Actually, it's a bit more complex than that:

Anyway, please don't suggest that hair products and associated chemical accessories are about getting one's hair clean. They're really about hype, image, cool, promoting habitual behavior, maximizing consumption, and fashion.

I use a tiny blob of dishwashing liquid soap. It's cheaper and works better (on what hair I have remaining).

Sure, forty something years ago.

Nope. Not even close. I never used anything other than shampoo in my hair.

Sure but it's more than gross.

Yeah, I remember leisure suits, too. Perhaps it's been in fashion but I have never been held captive by what's in fashion at any particular time. ...unless you consider "clean" a fashion. Let women have the fashion designers.

BTW, I have never worn a leisure suit. My FIL had them and I thought he looked ridiculous in them. ;-)

Bar soap is good enough for the rest of my body, so it's good enough for my hair.

Some of the stuff (I'm looking at you, Schwartzkopf) sold through women's hairdressers is astoundingly dear.

Wasn't the 1950's approach to simply spit into your comb beforehand? Cheaper again, but you don't get that delightful lemony smell.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

If you have time or interest, you might want to look at the ingredients or MSDS sheet on some of these hair products and guess their intent. For example, formaldehyde or methylene glycol was a common ingredient for "smoothing" the hair.

Close. The ritual was to spit on the left hand, smear the saliva into the hair, comb with the right hand, wipe left hand on greasy blue jeans. Done correctly and after some practice, the move can be completed in seconds, or extended into a many minute long ceremonial procedure (to impress the girls). I vaguely recall doing that once or twice, but abandoned the practice mostly because I didn't like the spit on my jeans.

Product idea: What the world needs is an electromechanical consumer product dispenser. For example, screw a hair grease tube into the dispenser, select the delivery quantity on the dial or keypad, press the button, and it will deliver exactly the quantity selected. It can be sold as an over-consumption reduction product and ecologically correct product. One could probably give away the dispenser at near cost, and sell the adapters for various style bottles and tubes at a profit. It can probably be made to work with everything from table salt to hair oil.

Say "no" to shampoo. Demand *real* poo.

No issue, it's just that shampoo is easier. Hair takes more soap.

I'm tired of ending up with the fake stuff:

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany