A few years ago Capalano College in Vancouver closed their casting program and sold off their equipment. A friend bought their muller and when he went to pick it up the fellow on the loading dock said "That has to go too" and pointed to about 20 bags of a product he said he thought was petrobond. I got a couple of bags but I have no idea what it is. The bags are 25 Kg and marked "Hy Bond" and in smaller letters further down on the bag is says "A HY BOND PRODUCT from Fairly incorporated Surrey BC I googled Fairly but they went out of business about 30 years ago. There is no sand in the mix. It is a pale yellow colour. I have a bit of bentonite to compare it to. The bentonite is a light grey. The bentonite mixes with water and forms a slurry that doesn't separate. This stuff will not dissolve in water at all. It just settles out. It does not dissolve in oil or varsol either. Does anybody have any idea what it is or what additional tests I can do? Brian
It might be the treated bentone suitable for oil rather than water suitable bentonite. That's hard to get hold of. Super hybond plus is fireclay: https://ssfbs.com/product/super-hybond-plus/
OK i took Known Petrobond clay, about two spoon fulls in the bottom of a solo cup. added about an equal amount of non-detergent oil , stirred it with screwdriver , and got a thin cake icing, non lumpy, try that and see your results V/r HT1 P.S. I suspect what you have is some sort of fireclay, but that should mix up with water then harden if you repeat the experiment i did above with water rather then oil
Good link. It could very well be a refractory of some sort. While disappointing, better I know before wasting time trying to make K-Bond out of it. Any ideas how to test whether or not it is a refractory? I am assuming in normal use it would be mixed with a small amount of water and then dried or baked and the end result would look like a brick? FWIW, I was able to track down some other former Fairly customers and they were all pottery supply shops so it would make sense that he was in the business of making pottery like materials. The college would very likely have had material to line their kilns with so this is a strong possibility. I tried equal parts of the clay with oil and it made a sort of gritty mix. I will give it a couple of days but I suspect it will separate. I took a couple more spoonful's and dampened it with a bit of water. I can form it into a lump but it just falls apart when I put it down. It is fairly cold in the garage so it might be different when warm. I will try firing it with a propane torch to see if I can make a brick. Brian
one painful thing to keep in mind: as old as that material is it may have separated out so you may have to dry mix an entire bag then test it with water All the Phenolic binders I have seen where a liquad, but that is 30+ year old info V/r HT1
You could try heating a partial teaspoon of it slowly with a torch. If it melts or burns, it's probably not clay. Testing it with alcohol might be something else. Since it is 'unknown', testing needs to be done carefully: small amounts, ventilation, ability to extinguish fire, etc...
I thought I saw somewhere a use by date on a container of bentone, or listed on a data sheet. Take this with a big grain of salt. I did a quick search and couldn't find anything to confirm this. If it was regular bentonite I would expect it should be stable.
I cannot imagine anything in clay or refractory that would expire, save it drawing enough moisture to harden, which would be pretty obvious
