Thread: My adventures with ivory. With a side order of GAH! CORROSION!

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

I do Quite a bit of Ivory repair and restoration (other than razor scales) one trick we use is to run the cracked item thru an ultrasonic with mild soap,that removes any discoloration.
If a large crack or void is to be filled,I mix some powdered Ivory with epoxy or CA clue as a filler.
Repairs become almost invisable.

That should be fine with a large crack, but the kind usually seen on razors will allow the glue to enter, especially if it is cyanoacrylate, but not the ivory powder. If I wanted to try this, I would try to get the powder into the crack, and impregnate it with the cyanoacrylate afterwards. But Ace Hardware do a white epoxy glue, probably intended for bathroom items, which is actually slightly off-white, and all you would lose is the thought that there is ivory in there someplace.

I'm an electrician, and in construction we're careful to avoid putting dissimilar metals in contact with each other (e.g., zinc-galvanized strut and copper grounding wire). If you can do something to waterproof the area where you have your copper and lead touching, you'll save yourself some future grief. Those dissimilar metals jammed up against one another will experience a lot of corrosion.

Originally Posted by roughkype

I'm an electrician, and in construction we're careful to avoid putting dissimilar metals in contact with each other (e.g., zinc-galvanized strut and copper grounding wire). If you can do something to waterproof the area where you have your copper and lead touching, you'll save yourself some future grief. Those dissimilar metals jammed up against one another will experience a lot of corrosion.

Thank you for reminding me of this! I've done enough work with exotic computer component cooling that I was well aware (and have been bitten by) the joy of galvanic corrosion. So I'm kind of surprised I didn't think about it here.

The one positive thing is that lead and copper are quite close on the galvanic chart and not as likely to screw each other over as, say, copper and aluminum. However, this really sounds like a job for Ren Wax.