Thread: Actual Testing OMG - Alcohol and Razors

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Except the higher concentration started rusting the razor faster under the line.... we had to wait about 3 hours to start seeing the changes... You must have missed that part, it is very subtle change but it is there

No, I didn't miss that. I said that pure alcohol won't cause rust, but the water used to dilute it might; from the information you provided, all your alcohol solutions were diluted. Your setup begins to suggest a timeframe in which that might happen; the importance of which I alluded to in my proposed followup question. Did you happen to note more precisely than at the next complete hour when that started to happen for the different concentrations? Do you know what the alcohol contents actually were at that time?

(The mental picture I'm forming suggests that at higher concentrations, the change in concentration with respect to time will be higher than at lower concentrations - a greater concentration of alcohol near the surface means a greater rate of alcohol evaporation than if there was water occupying the surface and preventing the alcohol from escaping. No idea if the rate of change of concentration vs concentration would be linear or not... but I'm inclined to think not.)

Also interesting that the buffed razors show rust first... more information about the surface textures of the razors would be helpful, as that appears to be a variable that affects the outcome. That is another possible reason (different surface texture) that one of the buffed razors began to rust before the other. Many variables makes it impossible to figure out which one (or more) is actually causing the varying outcomes.