Welding Tips and Tricks

This question doesn't have anything to do with welding, so I apologize first off.......Is there any kind of chemical reaction between brass and lacquer thinner or mineral spirits? We have an HVLP sprayer for paint whose gun air inlet nozzle is made out of plastic. This nozzle will usually break at the wrong time, usually when we really need the gun and replacement parts are 3 days away. When else does stuff break? I want to duplicate this part out of brass for better strength, but we always soak the gun in lacquer thinner to clean it after a job, hence my question.

Normally for something like this I would use drill rod for strength, but it would be subject to watered down latex paint almost everyday and i'm sure that would rust out, thus the choice of brass.

Thanks!
Other Steve

delraydella wrote: Normally for something like this I would use drill rod for strength, but it would be subject to watered down latex paint almost everyday and i'm sure that would rust out, thus the choice of brass.
Thanks!
Other Steve

Steve,

Disclaimer: I'm not a chemist, but I do have some experience in chemistry and chemical engineering. I did a little checking and brass seems not to be affected by most organic solvents _unless_ there is contamination, water being one of the containments mentioned. Seems to me you might see some corrosion after time, but it might clean up and not be a problem. Might be worth a try if it's easy. Personally, I'd use stainless if at all possible.

Good luck!

Riley

Brass is a good choice.

Laquer thinner will not affect it, and while exposure to latex/water may turn it green, there should be no effect on performance. My DeVilbiss airless sprayer had some brass components, and was regularly exposed to both oil-based and water-based paints, laquer thinner, mineral spirits, and soap & water.

I had no performance issues.

That said, Stainless steel won't turn green, nor will aluminum.

Steve S.

Thanks Riley and Steve S.

I never thought about making it out of stainless, but that's a good idea. I'd be worried about aluminum, especially the threading eventually stripping out, but an aircraft aluminum could work well. Maybe i'll try all three!

i've tried gluing the plastic piece back together with no luck on any type of glue. I suppose if that piece of plastic is already impervious to many types of chemical thinners, it would also be resistant to any type of solvent based glue.