Why is my latex “melting”??
- Thread starter Bowers
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some food for thought...
There is an urban legend being repeated here....
Electric motors are almost all brushless, and have been that way for a long time. The "old" electric motors would produce ozone, and became a culprit in material breakdown. There are few anymore....
Now, that being said, hydrocarbons can and still are an issue (garage storage), but the A/C motor running your rom air conditioner is not the culprit.
As recently said, common body oils will degrade latex products. I'm sure there are product changes to material quality/quantity that have the stuff from "the old days" lasting longer, so you may have had better success in the past...
There is an urban legend being repeated here....
Electric motors are almost all brushless, and have been that way for a long time. The "old" electric motors would produce ozone, and became a culprit in material breakdown. There are few anymore....
Now, that being said, hydrocarbons can and still are an issue (garage storage), but the A/C motor running your rom air conditioner is not the culprit.
As recently said, common body oils will degrade latex products. I'm sure there are product changes to material quality/quantity that have the stuff from "the old days" lasting longer, so you may have had better success in the past...
Another thing to watch out for is what kind of "talc" are you using on them? Pure talc is good - but body powders (like baby powder) tend to have additives that can do bad things.
covediver
Contributor
I stored away a drysuit with latex seals in a cool, dry place for a couple of years when I got the new drysuit. When I took it out of the bag, the latex seals had deteriorated completely. Just part of the aging process as soemone said.
This was a HUGE problem about 15 years ago, especially with drysuits made by Whites. If you do a search, you will find multiple threads on the issue. You will also find a thread in which I reported on an experiment I did.
I had a neck seal start to go very early in its life. I cut it into squares and contaminated those squares with every possible contaminant possible in scuba. (People were even suggesting that copper from copper pennies was the culprit. I checked it.) Absolutely none of those contaminants did a thing, even after months of contact.
I also asked two Ph.D chemists, and they both pooh-poohed the contaminant theory. They both said the obvious problem was poorly made latex. It was deteriorating because it was not properly created in the first place.
I had a neck seal start to go very early in its life. I cut it into squares and contaminated those squares with every possible contaminant possible in scuba. (People were even suggesting that copper from copper pennies was the culprit. I checked it.) Absolutely none of those contaminants did a thing, even after months of contact.
I also asked two Ph.D chemists, and they both pooh-poohed the contaminant theory. They both said the obvious problem was poorly made latex. It was deteriorating because it was not properly created in the first place.
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