Thread: Celluloid drastic color change

I've seen many of those and the only few times I had some success at getting it dark colored again if the colored hadn't faded to much or there were just a few steaks of the olive color come through was to soak and rub it in with neatsfoot oil overnight. But that's pretty much it. I've heard that it's mainly the exposure to (extreme) sunlight that is part of the discoloration.

I have also seen a bunch of these and once they turn for the most part, the color stays. I have seen them turn just from the use of very hot water to clean them. When black, they buff out nicely. When green, they buff out greenly, but a little shinier. In either case, they still smell funny.

Have fun,

Lynn

Yes, the smell is bad. Mine started to smell strange. Then it turned from this to the picture above in just two weeks.

If it is vulcanite (smells like old car tyres) then the agent responsible for the discolouration is the sulphur used in the manufacturing process. Different types of vulcanite had different formulations, so some had much more sulphur in them than others and discoloured quicker.

In pipes, the mouthpiece was either made from casting the molten vulcanite, or turned from solid vulcanite rods (which are usually called ebonite rods). The rods had much less sulphur in them and discoloured very little.

Pipe-makers used to boil the vulcanite to release the sulphur and thus get rid of the discolouration. I have tried this with a number of scales but had no luck - they either bent badly or got more discoloured or both!

Regards,
Neil

+1 to this! I hate the vulcanite stems on my pipes for that reason alone

Again, Gentlemen, many thanks !

I'll probably give the rub technique a try one of these days. But, for the time being, I'm focusing on honing-my-honing-skills ! ;-) Getting there...kinda...Lol !