On Apr 8, 2:49 pm, wrote:
I seem to recall alum is/was used in some pickling recipes, (as in
cucumbers) ; you might check in the spice section at the grocery
store.

On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 16:26:12 -0500, "Paul K. Dickman"

wrote:

"Michael Gray" wrote in message
news
Well, Google so far has NOT been my friend.
With a HSS 2-56 tap broken off in a lump of bronze I did my search -
found reference to "jewellers' screw remover, a white paste". Looked all
over the place in jewellers' webpages and couldn't find a thing.

The jewelers stuff is just alum. Every generation seems to forget the trick
and someone capitalizes on this by putting a bunch of alum in little
bottles.

They sell a bunch and disappear before the old timers can stop laughing.

There was recent reference here to the use of alum (septic pencil), but I
believe that was for use for a tap snapped off in aluminum.
I could move the hole over and retap, but it would throw off the symmetry
of the piece - however if the worst comes to the worst.
Help!

Alum works fine on bronze.

Use a saturated solution. You have to keep it hot and the tap immersed. If
you can't do either, you are just gonna waste your time.

You used be able to get alum at drug stores, but it is getting harder to
find. It seems drug stores don't want to sell anything that doesn't come in
a blister pack.

It is also used by textile dyers. Check for places that cater to craft
dyers.

And they're called "Styptic pencils"

Paul K. Dickman

It firms up your pickle.
Karl