Anyone Else Use Purple Power to Clean Smoking Paraphernalia? Is It Still Available?

[moose eater]

As the title says, I used to use this product years ago, 'Purple Power', can't find it locally at the moment, and getting ready for a trip, wanting all aspect of the trip to be ready, thus overdue cleaning of pipes,etc.

I also have coarse sea salt and multiple gallons of 99.9% Isopropyl alcohol, in case a DIY approach is necessary.

Pipes are brass, glass, and steel.. And some are very dirty. The metal bowls (nice brass x 2 and and shoddy steel x1) are dirty enough that the bowls are more or less welded in place by resin.

Wanting to let them soak with minimal agitation while I prep other things for the trip.

 

[sdd420]

Autozone usually stocks it

 

[moose eater]

Autozone usually stocks it

Thanks.

Are you thinking about 'Royal Purple' or 'Purple Power' (the Purple Power is the paraphernalia/pipe cleaner solution).

Purple Power has/had granules in it of some sort as an abrasive in the pipe cleaner solution, and what smelled like a reduced concentration of something resembling weaker ammonia and somewhat more pleasant aromatics.

'Royal Purple' makes the synthetic gear lubes I tend to run in the transfer cases, transmissions, and differentials on the automobiles and trucks, and their octane booster in the newest snowmobile.. It asks for a 91 octane, and the highest we have here at the pumps is 90.

 

[RobFromTX]

Finally auto zone is expanding their horizons The salt and alcohols just as good as all that other stuff moose. With my pipes with the welded resin i just grab a mason jar and fill it with alcohol. Take them out every few hours and take a brush to it. You may have to soak them a couple of days but it works

 

[moose eater]

Finally auto zone is expanding their horizons The salt and alcohols just as good as all that other stuff moose. With my pipes with the welded resin i just grab a mason jar and fill it with alcohol. Take them out every few hours and take a brush to it. You may have to soak them a couple of days but it works

They're on the kitchen table now in a stainless mixing bowl with the 99.9% Iso and a mix of fine sea salt and coarse sea salt.

Left them there when I went to town for errands, and it's taken a while, but the Iso is looking mud-puddle-ish now.

I keep reaching in with rubber 6 mil mechanics' gloves and sloshing them around in the alcohol, then tipping them up on end to watch the velocity of the flow of liquid through the stems. They're improving.

A couple of them (the 2 brass pipes) go way back in time, so I keep them around..

 

[RobFromTX]

They're on the kitchen table now in a stainless mixing bowl with the 99.9% Iso and a mix of fine sea salt and coarse sea salt.

Left them there when I went to town for errands, and it's taken a while, but the Iso is looking mud-puddle-ish now.

I keep reaching in with rubber 6 mil mechanics' gloves and sloshing them around in the alcohol, then tipping them up on end to watch the velocity of the flow of liquid through the stems. They're improving.

A couple of them (the 2 brass pipes) go way back in time, so I keep them around..

Yeah cleaning pipes is genuine pain the ass. My son hates it so much that he just buys those silicon pipes from the gas stations and just trashes them when they get clogged. Me im a glass man. Its probably been a decade since i owned a metal one but to each their own ofcourse

 

[moose eater]

Yeah cleaning pipes is genuine pain the ass. My son hates it so much that he just buys those silicon pipes from the gas stations and just trashes them when they get clogged. Me im a glass man. Its probably been a decade since i owned a metal one but to each their own ofcourse

The one nice glass pipe in need of cleaning was a gift for Father's Day or my birthday (several weeks apart from each other) a half dozen or more years ago, from my older son.

I have a smaller glass pipe that doesn't get used enough to require cleaning, that came from a shop in Whitecourt, Alberta (The Canna Cabana) when I was bringing my wife's automobile up from Tucson a few years ago, and had brought my own hash with me, but didn't take any smoking apparatus across the line with me.

 

[RobFromTX]

The one nice glass pipe in need of cleaning was a gift for Father's Day or my birthday (several weeks apart from each other) a half dozen or more years ago, from my older son.

I have a smaller glass pipe that doesn't get used enough to require cleaning, that came from a shop in Whitecourt, Alberta (The Canna Cabana) when I was bringing my wife's automobile up from Tucson a few years ago, and had brought my own hash with me, but didn't take any smoking apparatus across the line with me.

Tucson to Alberta. Now thats one hell of a road trip. Thats where the hash comes in though

 

[moose eater]

Tucson to Alberta. Now thats one hell of a road trip. Thats where the hash comes in though

No real hash coming in through Tucson. Shitloads of crank, and to a lesser degree, coke coming in through there. a fair bit of weed still, but not like the old days before sinsemila took over the US.

I'd watched a specific shop down there for a number of years, that's primarily a repair shop, but they also occasionally bid on 'diamonds in the rough' at auctions. They mostly deal with one make of vehicle, too.

And a friend who I knew up here, who worked as a mechanic as well as helping with legalization efforts, moved to Tucson years ago, so it was a two-fer trip.

Everything had seemed fine, until I realized I hadn't considered it was a February, which is one of our 2 coldest months in the North Country.

When I left Shelby Montana after spending the night there, it was -29 f. The vehicle I had picked up in Az had spent its life in Southern California and Arizona. It initially DEFINITELY resented the change in climate. The clutch was stiffer than a bastard as I approached the Alberta, Canadian Border.

 

[RobFromTX]

No real hash coming in through Tucson. Shitloads of crank, and to a lesser degree, coke coming in through there. a fair bit of weed still, but not likke the old days before sinsemila took over the US.

I'd watched a specific shop down there for a number of years, that's primarily a repair shop, but they also occasionally bid on 'diamonds in the rough' at auctions. They mostly deal with onemakeof vehicle, too.

And a friend who I knew up here, who worked as a mechanic as well as helping with legalization efforts, moved to Tucson years ago, so it was a two-fer trip.

Everything had seemed fine, until I realized I hadn't considered it was a February, which is one of our 2 coldest months in the North Country.

When I left Shelby Montana after spending the night there, it was -29 f. The vehiocle I had picked up in Az had spent its life in Southern Californial and Arizona. It initlaly DEFINITELY resented the change in climate. The clutch was stiffer than a bastard as I approached the Alberta, Canadian Border.

yeah meth is definitely the big thing in the south now. no more bathtub dope. you get it from mexico now. not a fan myself but hey everyones gotta have a vice

 

[moose eater]

Finally auto zone is expanding their horizons The salt and alcohols just as good as all that other stuff moose. With my pipes with the welded resin i just grab a mason jar and fill it with alcohol. Take them out every few hours and take a brush to it. You may have to soak them a couple of days but it works

I just checked the metal pipes (glass isn't in there yet), and they've been soaking for a bit over 3-4 hours or so.

I'd say the alcohol and salt bath works significantly better than the expensive shit in the bottle from the head shops.

I'm sold now.

 

[moose eater]

yeah meth is definitely the big thing in the south now. no more bathtub dope. you get it from mexico now. not a fan myself but hey everyones gotta have a vice

Very clean AND POTENT crank coming in these days, and from Brownsville, Texas, to Tucson, Arizona, to Chula Vista, California, extremely clean crank is going for ~$200/oz.

Which is why decently clean coke is so cheap there now (if you know someone); it's been pushed out of the market place by the bargain-basement hunters who don't realize the extreme differences in self-harm between the 2 substances if a person is doing either one in excess.

 

[Ca++]

Makes me think of this.

It's ethanol, with a bit of something to stop people drinking it. It's always stained purple. Very good for cleaning, and leaves no notable residue on glass. People still drink the stuff, so a negligible amount may not concern you.

If you have iso, this is probably interchangeable. Though I would rather consume traces of this than iso.


It's tainted to stop the alcohol tax levy. Stained to show what it is. It's purposely not food grade. In the home, it's main use is cleaning paint brushes, and thinning paint.

I clean my pipe with it. Just a rinse and the oil based residue, is a dry carbonised crust that isn't sticky at all. It becomes like washing coal dust off. A soft brush is all you might need.

 

[RobFromTX]

An extra ingredient to keep people from drinking it. What a time to be alive

 

[moose eater]

Makes me think of this.

It's ethanol, with a bit of something to stop people drinking it. It's always stained purple. Very good for cleaning, and leaves no notable residue on glass. People still drink the stuff, so a negligible amount may not concern you.

If you have iso, this is probably interchangeable. Though I would rather consume traces of this than iso.


It's tainted to stop the alcohol tax levy. Stained to show what it is. It's purposely not food grade. In the home, it's main use is cleaning paint brushes, and thinning paint.

I clean my pipe with it. Just a rinse and the oil based residue, is a dry carbonised crust that isn't sticky at all. It becomes like washing coal dust off. A soft brush is all you might need.

Thanks. Not familiar wiht that one.

I have a large stash of Iso around because I ceased making my extract with Iso and switched to Ethanol. So there's still several gallons of Iso around here.

I'll keep that in mind for the next time I need a solvent for this purpose.

 

[mean mr.mustard]

It says it right on the bottle... Methylated (or denatured) spirits contain methanol.

Don't drink that stuff.

Alcohol and salt plus time and shaking and perhaps a bit of heat is all that is necessary.

It probably doesn't smell as good as purple people eater though...

 

[Ca++]

Yes, meths is wood alcohol. It's the heads, the bit you chuck away when you first fire up your pot still. The bit that in prohibition times, was a blinding night.

If you have iso and ethanol to hand, then meths serves no purpose. It's just dirty ethanol. Here in the UK we don't easily find ethanol though (everclear isn't on our shelves) so this is the 24 hour supermarket option. Made cheap by avoiding the liquor tax, as it's for cleaning and such.

You can't actually separate it, even with fractional distillation. They have some trick in place. This trick might be why I'm not soaking my pipes for more than a few minutes. Though I imagine the chemical simplicity of meths could also be why it acts so quickly.


A meth head has traditionally been found on a bench in the UK, swilling this stuff, from a bottle hidden in a paper bag. Nothing to do with amphetamines until recently.

 

[moose eater]

Yes, meths is wood alcohol. It's the heads, the bit you chuck away when you first fire up your pot still. The bit that in prohibition times, was a blinding night.

If you have iso and ethanol to hand, then meths serves no purpose. It's just dirty ethanol. Here in the UK we don't easily find ethanol though (everclear isn't on our shelves) so this is the 24 hour supermarket option. Made cheap by avoiding the liquor tax, as it's for cleaning and such.

You can't actually separate it, even with fractional distillation. They have some trick in place. This trick might be why I'm not soaking my pipes for more than a few minutes. Though I imagine the chemical simplicity of meths could also be why it acts so quickly.


A meth head has traditionally been found on a bench in the UK, swilling this stuff, from a bottle hidden in a paper bag. Nothing to do with amphetamines until recently.

We used methyl-ethyl-ketone years ago to clean carburetors and other auto parts. That stuff was amazing. A toothbrush and some of that had an old tarnished carb looking almost new. But it was nasty stuff.

Breathing over it, even outdoors when cleaning stuff, once made me sick in a matter of moments; I suspected that it was because it was break-up (Spring time) and the thawing snow and debris in the ditch had concentrations of bacteria, etc., in it, and hovering over the MEK while cleaning parts in proximity to the ditch possibly accelerated what ever I was around making it into my lungs/system.

As amazing of a cleaner as it was for auto parts, I would've never used it on any kind of smoking paraphernalia..

 

[mean mr.mustard]

Off topic as per usual, in distillation the heads are the lighter alcohols and contain acetone, acetate, and acetyl aldehyde... they're solvent-like and very harsh. They're where most of the hangover comes from.

Foreshots are the methanol and cut first.

I usually run both foreshots and heads off to the deicer/cleaning/firestarter solution bucket. If you want to (as commercial distillers generally do) you can save the heads for redistilling and just discard the foreshots.

The heads are still very rich in the more toxic alcohol so I personally advise against it.

Back on topic, I think any solvent that isn't dissolving your bowl and evaporates cleanly is completely acceptable for removing resin.

 

[chilliwilli]

I always use dishwasher tabs and boiling water for my glass bongs. This would dev harm metals and i have cleaned aways a lot of ornaments with this but it works like a charm. Just clog the wholes, put 1/2-1 tab in the bong and fill with hot water. Sometimes there are some char like dots left that are easy to remove with a brush.
In austria we have "schmand weg" for cleaning bongs and the tabs are a cheap alternative.