It took a bit longer than usual to out-process me after my visit. So I’m standing there by the window to the office when I notice a very familiar (and very strong) smell. It was a smell that took me back to my childhood— Fedron. I knew instantly it was Fedron. I looked around the corner and sure enough, there was a repairman working on one of the two office typewriters that they still use to type labels and fill out forms (how quaint). The repairman was using Fedron, and the distinctive smell took me on a trip down memory lane. (Sniff that stuff long enough and it will take you on another kind of trip!)
My Dad was in the office equipment business for years. Fedron was the industrial strength solvent that he used to clean and restore typewriter platens and dissolve the “gunk” (technical jargon) on the typewriter keys. According to a supplier who will sell you a 4 ounce bottle for $10, Fedron is “a clear liquid, blended of highly refined pure chemicals, specially formulated for cleaning rubber, metal, Teflon, silicon, and similar materials.” What they don’t tell you is that it will eat through almost anything else!
Dad bought it in 10 gallon drums or something, and he used it for many different applications. When we bought our first house, the floors were saturated with the smell of the 6 or so adult dogs that the previous occupant kept inside… without ever letting go outside. I mopped the floors with a bucket of Fedron that Dad gave me, and it killed the smell of the dogs. It would have also killed the dogs had they been around! This was strong stuff.
I never thought I would grow nostalgic over the smell of a commercial solvent, but I did. As I stood there smelling the Fedron, I was taken back to summers working for Dad hunched over an Adler 21-C electric typewriter at
Enjoy every day that God gives you. You never know which day you will look back upon as “the good old days!”
3 comments:
Interesting thing about smells is that they can have such an effect on memory as to subtly take us back in time to the last place we smelled that smell. There are times when a drift of cigarette smoke takes me back (for just a moment) fishing with my grandfather. The smell of cigars and pipe tobacco often reminds me of the old barber shop were I got my haircuts as a boy, (All good memories). Smell is a wonderful gift is it not?
Fedron is 40-50% xylol, 5-10% ethyl acetate, 1-3% methanol, 40-50% ethanol and 1-5% 4-methyl-2-pentanone (it is extremely flammable and has a slight odor, (light headache is the first sign of exposure, move to fresh air). I have been looking this stuff up ever since the fist time I got sick after working for a small company for years with no ventilation those were not the good old days, (this is the good old days) I now have a respirator (if anyone wants one they can purchase them at Lowes for about $40, I upgraded to the better filter. It cost more but it is worth it as it greatly reduces the amount of toxic fumes and vapors that I breath while at work. Rule of thumb the filter will last about 8hours at 200ppm (less if the humidity is high) reducing the concentration of toxins in the air through ventilation is important to insure that the filter cartridges will last all day. I remember someone once told me, “If you can smell it you are doing something wrong.”
Store the unused cartridges in zip lock bag away from the chemicals so they will be effective when needed (same goes for the respirator). I know I am repeating myself but this is a very important matter and it bears repeating.
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