were are u getting the sodium nitrite?
You can order some Sodium Nitrate from Amazon or get some Borax powder from the grocery store in the laundry section. It works but leaves a white film on everything.
Get some SterlingCool plasma fluid. $140 a pail.
Will last you a long time.
Sodium Nitrite…
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NO!!! You want Sodium NITRITE! Not Sodium NitRATE!!!
And you only need 4oz to make a batch of concentrate to make 75 gallons of water.
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Sorry your right Tom. Easy mistake, just one letter and one oxider molecule.
just to help clarify…hehehehehe
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Thanks for the info on this product will be purchasing and using and no I’m not worried about any danger as far as breathing the vapors. It will be diluted and I will have a hood over my table pulling out the other harmful fumes from burning metal also I do have a respirator. We breathe so much from the environment we live in today, really not worried about this product.
Sorry for dragging up this thread, as it’s quite old, but I thought I would add that when you search “Sodium Nitrite” on Amazon, you get a lot of results for “Sodium NitrAte”, so you have to be careful. Also, the food grade Sodium Nitrate is only 6.25%, so you’d have to use 16x the concentration. Lastly, it seems like maybe pure Sodium Nitrite may be regulated now, as Amazon won’t sell it to you without a business license. And the best price I’m seeing is $40/lb. Of course this thread was started in pre-Covid times.
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Just buy a pail of Sterling Cool and it will last a year. You’ll have white deposits all over everything. Just my two cent.
No business license required…
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I live in the desert, and liquid evaporates FAST! For almost $200 delivered for 5 gallons (makes 100 gallons), I think I’d just go through it way too fast.
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I get it. Lived in the desert before. Believe me i get.
@CrazyCasey sodium nitrite has come under heavy scrutiny as people have used it to commit suicide and that is why Amazon has cracked down on its sale.
Interesting. It looks like you cannot buy it without a business license at this point in time. Of the few websites that do sell it, most of them have disclaimers.
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Ok, I just read through this thread a second time (and a couple others on the subject), and I need either some clarification, or maybe just a chemistry lesson.
It seems like Sodium Nitrite is going to be impossible to find, now, without a business license anyway…
There seems to be a lot of feedback for Borax (Sodium Tetraborate w/ 9.5 pH) still creating rust, and leaving a white residue on everything it splashes on. BUT, Borax doesn’t mix well with room temperature water, and it sounds like a lot of you who have used it haven’t necessarily gone to the trouble of verifying the pH. Is there anybody using Borax successfully (i.e. without rust and staining)?
There seems to be a tiny bit of feedback for the Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (Sodium Carbonate w/ 11 pH) as keeping rust at bay but dissolving the zinc plating that it touches (I’m assuming on the gantry!?). It seems it would be really easy to get the pH WAY too high with Washing Soda, but again, I’m curious if I even read that right, and if pH levels were verified in those cases. IS using Washing Soda successfully?
Thanks, and sorry. I just don’t see any of the commercial cutting fluids making sense right now (maybe when this machine is paying the bills, though), if Borax or Washing Soda are actually viable options.
Figure the thread needed an update, based on the current availability of Sodium Nitrite.
Thank You.
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Thanks for the refresh…. I hadn’t read through this one yet I don’t think.
I think the best part was @jamesdhatch reference to Death Valley Days 
. Way before my time but they used to show reruns on the old western channel on the antenna… name of the network slipped my mind at the moment.
Currently I just use water and drain it after each use.
I also live in a dry climate in northern Utah. Not quite a desert but close.
If I were to do any additive I think I’d use sterling cool or something similar and store it in a tank between uses.
Just my 2 cents.
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@CrazyCasey i use borax. i only used about 3/4 cup for the table…i premixed it with water prior to adding it to the table…that was a year ago. i have had to add water many many times but i never add any more borax as it is my understanding that it does not evaporate… when i clean out my table i will do the same process again. i read about people using borax and it seems like they use way too much a lot add more borax every time they add water which just drives the concentration up like crazy. that is where the white powdery residue comes from for a lot of folks i think. i do not have rust and what i really like about it is prior to using borax the underside of my sheet metal would rust like crazy from the water splashing up on it…now i can wait a week between cuts and whatever splashes on the bottom never rusts…i did run my table for a month with no water additive and my slats rusted and crusted up like crazy along with any drops that got left in the water. thats when i decided to give borax a try. now, rust has been fully arrested on the slats and whatever drops in the table never rusts. one down side is the dried water drops on the signs i cut seem to have an issue with paint…i do have to sand or sandblast or prime with an etching primer otherwise i do get shine through from those dried droplets on the metal when i paint with certain colors.
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I have Sterling cool. It works great and looks cool but I started emptying the table most times I used it and was going thru the blue gold quicker than I expected. I tried plain water and the metal was rusting before I got to the table with my grinders. Now I sprinkle about 1/8 of a cup of washing soda, do my cutting and clean out the bed with garden hose and leaf blower. (Outside on the side of the driveway).
Note: Apparently if you leave the table full with water and washing soda, it becomes a bit of science lab with smelly growth of stuff. You would not want to cut your finger and get that stuff splashed in it. For that end, people recommend adding something like Hydrofarm Physan PSPTA20 Algaecide, Fungicide, Bactericide, Virucide. The problem with that product is that it can be considered a poisonous product. Now you have to be concerned with the pets, kids and the environment.
Thus I am now rinsing it out.
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Try borax instead of washing soda. Its all ive ever used. No rust and no problems
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I’ve been using the Physan 20 at a concentration of roughly 1 tbsp per 10 gallons. I wonder at what concentration it’s considered poisonous. I get enough splashing to where it’s something I should probably make myself aware of, anyway…
Keep in mind, all chemical reactions are exceptionally different (much more potent) when your talking about super heated vaporized molecules going directly into your lungs, eyes and mucous membranes. Thats what turned cocaine into crack just as an example.
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What @DnKFab said!!! Losing eyesight, breathing issues are all valid concerns. I had a patient that invented the first concrete pumper truck. His claim not mine. He had all the money he could spend but the impact of breathing the cement dust did him in. Fast forward to his forced retirement and he had such breathing difficulties that it caused severe pain. He was suppose to take a drop or two of morphine suspension prn (as needed for pain). Over the course of 10 or 15 minutes, he would take two or three dropper full doses (probably 30 drops each). He died the next week.
Of course we might invent velcro with one of these accidents.