Author Topic: Corrosion Control Options  (Read 2423 times)

William Worth

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Corrosion Control Options
« on: December 04, 2008, 06:40:35 PM »
Does anyone here have experience with using VCI (Volatile Corrosion Inhibitors) for their; guns, rifle balls, etc.?   That would be the little treated piece of paper or cardboard that you find in a new set of dies, or wrapped around a new reamer or whatever.  It looks like it could be a good suppliment to other corrosion control.  It would penetrate places that you can't otherwise reach and not have to be removed to use the piece again like you do a grease.

I'm just afraid to put a bunch of VCI paper in the gun safes, only to find that everything in there has crumbled into something resembling old parchment paper a year or two later.   :'(

There are a LOT of varieties of the stuff marketed.
 

 


Daryl

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Re: Corrosion Control Options
« Reply #1 on: December 04, 2008, 07:32:54 PM »
William- it is common for guys with large safes with valuable gun collections to buy desicants by the bag.  I thought they were for moisture only, though. The paper wrapps are used by gun companies as well to wrapp modern rifles in. They can remain in the wrapp inside a box for many years, without the gun's deteriorating.  Couple years back, I bought a rifle from a local shop that had been thus stored since it's manufacture in 1990.  It had been not removed from the box, was wrapped in the anti-moisture, anti-corrosion paper for 16 years - no damage, so I suspect it would work in a gun safe.  I'd the mfgr for details, I suppose.

William Worth

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Re: Corrosion Control Options
« Reply #2 on: December 04, 2008, 07:43:01 PM »
That's the neat part. 

VCI works the opposite of dessicants.  VCI vapors enclose the protected item(s) with a molecular level (sometimes a single molecule thin) protective layer that seals it from water and water vapor. 

Dessicants work by trying to suck up all of the water available.

Reactivity (compatibility) testing sounds expensive.

I once had a sealed glass jar of iodine crystals that I kept around for water purification purposes.  Despite the sealed glass jar being itself inside a sealed plastic bag, a urethane coated rainsuit that shared the box crumbled like old paper with an ugly yellowish, brown stain in everything around the offending jar.