Official Luthiers Forum!

Following John hall's recent post about using ammonia based Windex instead of SuperSoft in another thread I looked on youtube to see if he had posted a video yet.
Found this by Mr LaPlante https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=315&v=WTbc6FDusUQ
He was using household ammonia to bend highly flamed maple, which has very little if any tannins in I-t which I understand darken with exposure to ammonia.
Does anyone else have experience, or knowledge, of using ammonia for side bending?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

No, but ammonia fumes are very dangerous higher concentration. Can be fatal quickly, ask anyone in industrial refrigeration.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

As a both a chemical laboratory technician and a oilfield rig site safety controller in previous lives I am well aware of the potential dangers and would take all precautions.
The stuff used for refrigeration is pure or anhydrous ammonia, no water, and is extremely nasty.
Even a concentrated solution is very nasty, I once had to apply first aid to a college who got a major facefull in a lab.
Windex, used as mentioned by John Hall, contain around 7.5% ammonium hydroxide, i.e. it is ammonia dissolved in water, and as such the equivalent ammonia content is even less than that 7.5%.
Most people cleaning their mirrors are just careful not to spray it in their eyes, and don't wear full PPE and breathing apparatus.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

What about the soap in the Windex? Doesn't that leave a residue? Seems like it would be better to get just plain household ammonia and put it in a spray bottle (perhaps diluted). ...but how diluted?

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

What soap? I see wetting agents but not any soaps.
I can buy 500 ml in local DIY shop at a concentration similar to Windex for $4.50., but some of the other Windex ingredients may help bending, alcohol, wetting agents, at not much more cost.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I also would like to hear more about using a 'household' style of ammonia for bending maple. And on another day explore propylene glycol.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

I'm curious about this too. I would swear Windex has soap in it but I certainly could be wrong. It seems to sud up nicely when you spray it on a window though.

Would this work for bending on a hot pipe or is this more specific to bending in a mold jig apparatus thingie.

I'm not a chemist, but isn't soap a wetting agent?

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Are people interested in using ammonia because of cost, availability, efficacy for bending, or some combination, or something else?

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Windex doesn’t contain ammonia anymore anyway.

The ingredients of Windex glass cleaner are: water, 2-hexoxyethanol, isopropanolamine, sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate, lauramine oxide, ammonium hydroxide, fragrance, and Liquitint sky blue dye.

Sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate and lauramine oxide are surfactants. I think this is where the idea that Windex contains soaps comes from. Sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate is classified as a detergent and I'm guessing that the "D" in Ammonia-D stands for detergent.

There is a version of Windex that doesn't contain ammonia, but it has sodium hydroxide instead.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

so much misinformation here
yes Windex does have ammonia d you have to look for the old stuff
Ammonia gas and liquid ammonia are 2 different things
Ammonia was used for bending wood in the days of wooden rakes and farm implements
I have not seen any finish issues using this and used it on 3 different finishes.
Windex had more than 1 formulation so read the label
This is not a new technique so it is a proven method of bending.
What is the wattage of your blankets? That is a lot.

here is what is in Windex with ammonia D
All but two Windex® Glass and Multi-Surface Cleaners contain detergents, solvents, fragrance, Ammonia-D®, and alcohol. They should not be used if ammonia is not recommended for use on surface. (Windex® Multi-Surface Vinegar and Windex® Outdoor Multi-Surface do not contain ammonia.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

As you can see that Colin has his information correct

In the old days ammonia used in the wood bending process was used in the steaming part and that was a sealed off and under heat and sometimes pressure.

Ammonia was also used as a wood stain as it does darken wood , but we are talking an industrial use not home use. Also with todays safety laws you can't buy very string ammonia at a store. So lets look at a simple process

Super Soft 2 is a veneer softener and many used this including myself. I had heard about windex a few years ago but never tried it until 2 friends turned me on to it. Both of them are very high end builders. So I tried it and found that it works well. In some of the thread there are posts of temp and I assume they are discussing Centigrade not Fahrenheit .
My stack for bending changed through the years. I use SLAT WET PAPER WOOD WET PAPER SLAT BLANKET on top with the thermometer between the top slat and blanket. Yes the blanket is exposed to air on 1 side but that isn't an issue. I use a 5 watt per sq in heat blanket that is a commercial grade unit. I keep it simple as the heat of the blanket is more important the the heat of the wood. If your looking for a 275 F on the wood and it is wet you will get a false read as the steam will work as a refrigerant and show a lower them then it really is.
Keep notes but I can say most wood bends well at 275F to 350 F allow a 10 min set cycle of 220 to 250 F to remove moisture. Let cool. This is for machine bending. I do lower bout upper bout then the waist.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Ok so this is not a hot pipe method of bending then. Or do you think Windex would aid in that as well?

John, where does the windex come in? do you wet the paper with it? or spray some on the wood?

Until all of the liquid water is converted to steam, a thermocouple on wet wood will show something close to the boiling point of water...not a false reading, but instead, just a consequence of the need to add a lot of energy to the system to push the water through phase change and into steam. Once the wood is dry and all that water is steam, the temperature will move up briskly.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

I use the windex on both paper and the wood. I do not use a thermocouple I use a thermometer and only on the blanket I don't measure the wood temp I know the blanket is hot enough to create steam it is heating the wood

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Thanks for your input John.
As Windex is not readily available in UK I've been looking at making my own mix to try. Also avoids unnecessary ingredients.
As a quick test, reasonably successful, using 2mm x 20mm maple sprayed and wrapped in alu foil for 10 mins.
Then bent on a bending iron inside the foil to simulate something close to a bending machine.
This was a mix of household ammonia (9.5%) and water, 1:4 (so ~2.5% ammonia) with 10% isopropyl alcohol added, but still trying to find the best ammonia concentration.
Seems original Windex may have been 5% ammonia so may try to double the ammonia.

Update:
Found this on the net so my 1:4 mix may not be too far out.

I think the isopropanol may assist (help the NH3 vapour penetrate the wood)
The detergent/soap would not be necessary ….

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Does the blue tint in the Windex color the wood at all?

NO

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I've been using Super Soft and it works very well, but the woods I bend most don't need it, and I have most of the gallon left. Now apparently Windex works as well for bending. What am I gonna do with all this Super Soft?

Does anyone know if you can clean windows with it?

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Tim Allen
"Never hurry, never rest."

Send it to me?

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

"As Windex is not readily available in UK I've been looking at making my own mix to try."

Certainly nothing wrong with making your own mix, but you might find that a lot of commercial glass cleaners use ammonia in their formulations. As Shakespeare may have said "Would Windex by any other name bend wood as well?"

Some do, and it would. if composition could be confirmed.
Ammonia as an ingredient is easy, %'s tend to be regarded as commercially sensitive.
Other ingredients may be unneccesary or possibly even inconvenient.

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

It seems as though actually demonstrating to yourself that an alternative method works at least as well as what you are currently using seems like a good idea before committing to a method for work that matters. About 25% of our bending is for fairly tight Venetian cutaways, so for us, that trial would include a bend with a tight cutaway in a wood that tends to exhibit fiber collapse when saturated with water (a full body bend does not tend to be an issue even without a bending aid, while a tight Venetian bend is THE test case for a bending aid).

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan