A reader dropped me an email and asked if I am doing anything new this year for mosquitoes as he read my past posts. I’m still very happy with the effectiveness of the Talstar insecticide plus the combination of the Ryobi 120350 Power Washer and 10-gallon tank strapped to a dolly continues to work fantastic.
I hope everyone has a great summer and be sure to nuke the bugs before they get to you 🙂
5/21/23 Update – still using the same set up. Everything is working great, Power washer is holding up just fine by the looks of it. I just did my first spray of the season last Monday.
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Our home was built in the early 1970s and someone decided to use same relatively soft red brick at the threshold of the door as the rest of house’s exterior walls. I noticed in the fall of 2020 it was really starting to spall – meaning the brick was starting to flake apart. This happens when water gets in, freezes, expands and causes parts of the brick to crack and split. The above photo gives you and idea of what it looked like.
I did what I normally do – I started reading about how to stop spalling brick. The consensus was that sealing the brick before spalling started was the best approach but you know what – that really didn’t help me much because I already had spalling going on but the core of the bricks was intact.
Let me tell you something – there are a ton of brands of masonry sealer and based on the forecast, my procrastination was forcing me to get something applied within three days of cold weather really setting in. This meant and I had to rush and get something on-hand at a local store.
The closest hardware store to me is Ace so I want to the section where they had masonry sealers and started googling and reading reviews of each one that they had in stock. Again, I was pressed for time so I had to move. What I wound up buying was UGL DryLok Floor and Wall Masonry Sealer.
This is what I bought.
I got home, read the instructions, cleaned the brick off, put down a piece of cardboard to catch the drips and applied it fairly thickly with a painbrush taking care to daub it into all of the corners. The stuff seriously reminded me of Elmer’s Glue but not such a bright white.
This is the second coat. I applied the first coat the day prior and I took care to make sure I worked the sealer into all of the cracks.
I literaly laid down on my side and worked the sealer into every crack – including where the masonry was gone. I did this for both the first and second coat.
I let it dry overnight and then applied the recommended second coat . After drying, the bricks had a “wet” look to them – they were slightly darker and shinier than before but they appeared sealed. So, I crossed my fingers and hoped it would at least make it through the winter and I would plan a new approach if it failed.
Okay, I am now writing this in June of 2021, about seven months later and the DryLok worked. Not one bit of new spalling and even more surprising, the sealer looks the same. I can’t say that I see any wear in teh shiny finish. I guess now I will just wait and see how long it holds up.
THis photo is from June 21, 2021. No new spalling and the sealer does not show any sign of wear. You can see that the wet look faded as the sealer dried but the bricks are still slightly darker and shinier than the uncoated bricks. All of the bricks in this photo were coated by the way both the top protruding threshold and all of the bricks underneath it.
I Was So Impressed I Used It On Our Chimney Cap
A project on my list for this June was to seal my poured concrete chimney cap. It was starting show some surface cracks and when I ran my hand across it, I could feel loose grains of sand. It definitely needed to be sealed.
Guess what I used? I bought a gallon of the DryLok to do the threshold and only used a tiny amount to do it. I went and got the gallon and used over half of it applying two decents coats to the chimney cap and flue covers. We’ll see how long it holds up but I suspect it will be a few years at least given the threshold.
You want to protect the integrity of your chimney cap as it prevents water from running down into your chimney and causing the bricks to crumble. We replaced the original cap with this new one about 3-5 years ago and the sealer I applied then was long gone. I honestly don’t recall what I used.
That crack is what got my butt in gear to get up and seal the cap. As with the threshold, I applied the recommended two coats and I do put it them on iberally. It was scorching hot up there so the sealer dried fast but I still waited until the next day to put on the second coat.
If I can take an easy path I will. I noticed the caps to the flues were starting to rust so I sealed them as well. I was there … I had the sealant … it just seemed a lot easier than going down to the shop, getting black Rustoleum, climbing back up, etc. We’ll see how it holds up – that is a pretty brutal surface when you think about it – full sun and heat in the summer and full sun and cold in the winter … time will tell.
In Summary
The UGL DryLok Floor and Wall Masonry Sealer did a great job stopping the spalling of our front door’s brick threshold and it made it through one winter. Given how it performed, I just used it to seal our chimney cap and we’ll see how long it lasts there as well.
I hope this helps you out.
Note, I have to buy all of my parts – nothing here was paid for by sponsors, etc. I do make a small amount if you click on an ad and buy something but that is it. You’re getting my real opinion on stuff.
If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.
Folks, I have a really heavy garage door – I don’t know the exact weight but it uses springs rated for a 400 pound door – that much I can tell you . Some years back I replaced the pullies with two units I got from Home Depot. They did last maybe three years (I’m not exactly sure how long but it wasn’t very long relatively speaking) and then the door started jamming and the cable was jumping the pulley so I needed to get some replacements. Note, I was only having a ton of trouble on one side but garage door pullies are best replaced in pairs.
I got a good look at the pulley and it was fried. For whatever reason, I did not get a picture of it before I threw it in the trash. The pulley was bent away from the axle, the bearing were very loose and the outside lip of the pulley that should hold the cable in place was bending/rolling outward and no longer retaining the cable – no wonder there were constant problems.
So, I first went to Home Depot and was not impressed. I then started reading on pullies on Amazon and found the units I am now running. They are amazingly more beefy than what our local Home Depot had.
The sides of the pulley are stampings but they are made from heavy gauge steel and the groove in the pulley is deeper than what I originally had.The bearings turn smoothly and there is no play. I was very impressed.
If you are looking for a new 3″ diameter pulley that uses a 3/8″ bolt to mount, I’d definitely recommend these. There’s a good reason they have almost five stars with 158 reviews.
Installation
I’m to the point where anything that is easy really makes me happy. This was really easy. I’ll tell you what I did for my door and your design may require different or additional steps.
I opened the garage door to remove the tension on the cables.
I worked on one pulley at a time.
I removed the cable from the pulley
Used one wrench to hold the nut in the back and a socket in the front to remove the old pulley (it was a wreck)
Installed the new pulley along with the shackles to keep the cable in place just in case – that means running the bolt through the assembly and back into the hole on the garage door’s wall frame.
Put the cable back on the pulley
Sprayed Teflon dry lube on the bearings. I don’t like oil as it collects dust and dirt but that’s just me.
Moved stuff out of the way
Tested the door
Done
You can see the new pulley mounted on the frame. The powdery look is the Teflon dry lubricant. I moved the shackle around some to try and figure out where it might do the best to keep the cable from jumping out. The pulley’s groove is so deep that I honestly don’t think it matters in my case but it is there for added insurance.
Conclusion
Happy to report that these are rock solid replacements – it came as a pack of four so I have two for the future as well – if I ever need them. I’m very happy with the results – the door opens and closes very smoothly and the cable no longer jumps the pulley. It’s also much quieter I notice.
Note, I have to buy all of my parts – nothing here was paid for by sponsors, etc. I do make a small amount if you click on an ad and buy something but that is it. You’re getting my real opinion on stuff.
If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.
For whatever reason, maybe the really wet Spring, the mosquitoes have been horrible this year. For the first month or two of the season I was trying to use my M4 sprayer to apply the Talstar P Pro insecticide to combat them but they were still coming. Seriously, in the past the M4 sprayer and Talstar were a powerful combo and all but eliminated the damn mosquitoes but not this year. We did not have any standing water and they seemed to be coming from all of the vegetation that I could not reach with the M4’s relatively small spray pattern and reach. I needed to up my game.
The My 4 Sons M4 sprayer had worked well but it could not reach out far enough and with enough droplets to be effective this year. I still use the unit for smaller areas but it is now largely replace by the unit I’ll tell you about in this post.
My First Choice: Get a Tomahawk Fogger
My first thought was to get one of the big Tomahawk backpack foggers. Those things are amazing and can project an atomized fog of Talstar 40 feet horizontally and 25 feet vertically. It’s really wicked and my buddy John has one that he bought off Amazon. He uses it on his property and loves it. I looked at it and the unit is remarkably well made.
There was only one thing that stopped me – the weight. It’s 38 pounds empty. The tank can hold 3.7 gallons of mixed Talstar and water at about 8.3 pounds per gallon, which comes to 30.7 pounds. Add the two together and you get 68 pounds. I knew there was no way my back would be able to handle that load. John’s in way better shape than me and admits it is a heavy load.
So, even though it works amazingly well, I had to pass on it due to the weight. I find I have to think about these things as I get older. In case you want to get one, here’s the listing on Amazon:
Needed to Find Another Solution
I started researching other sprayers and foggers and ran into an unanticipated problem. It turns out that tons of businesses and people are buying these foggers to apply disinfectants to sanitize surfaces in response to COVID-19. Either units weren’t available or the prices were jacked up – mostly they just weren’t available and I bet part of that is disruptions in the supply chain causing supply shortages as well.
Crap.
The Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Solution
The solution came from a surprising angle. I knew I needed a long reach and particles that could drift around. Literally, I woke up thinking of what might just work – have you ever used a power washer? They are essentially kicking out water under a ton of pressure using a tip at the end of the wand that adjusts the pattern. Therein was the idea. I need a something with pressure, was portable and would not cost a fortune and then luck entered the door.
This is the Ryobi RY120350 cleaner. The tip has three settings and I find 15 degrees to be best. The siphon hose has a quick connect that makes storing the unit easier. The One+ 18 volt battery is protected by a gasket sealed cover that snaps in place. I find I can almost spray 10 gallons before I need to swap batteries with a 4 AH battery. It can hold both the 6 and 9 AH batteries and they can do all 10 gallons.
At the beginning of the summer Home Depot and Ryobi announced the RY120350 Power Washer. It was a cordless power tool using one of ther 18-Volt One+ batteries. The pump could prime itself and could siphon water out of a bucket and spray 0.8 gallons per minute at 320PSI. I was hoping it would make it easier for my wife and I to wash cars and so forth without lugging out my big gas-powered 3,200 PSI pressure washer. Well, it turned out that the spray it generated was way too weak to do much of anything. By the way, I notice the listing now on HomeDepot.com says “Cold Water Cordless Power Cleaner” to probably admit it isn’t very strong. At any rate, it sat in the garage after initial testing for maybe 4-6 weeks but for whatever reason I held on to it.
Back to killing mosquitoes – I was thinking about how I could spray the Talstar out of a pressure washer pump and suddenly remembered the Ryobi unit and recalled it did kick out a better spray than the M4. I dug the Ryobi out, found the misplaced sprayer hose, set the sprayer tip to 15 degrees, dropped the siphon line into a pail of water, squeezed the trigger, let it prime and out came a great spray pattern!!!
It kicks out a really decent spray pattern at 15 degrees. I find the other two settings useless for this application – they are too weak.
Okay, the unit was never designed to be a insecticide sprayer and nobody has really used it for sanitizing because it is bulky and an odd configuration for that so guess what? It’s in-stock at most Home Depot stores and online for $79 + S&H — best of all, it kicks butt as a Talstar delivery system.
What did I do?
If you are concerned about the unit holding up, all I can tell you is so far so good. At $79, I’m really not worried about the unit wearing out. I have pumped at least 70 gallons of Talstar mix through the unit without any problem thus far but it did take some trial and error to get to where I am today.
So my first try was to drop the whole siphon unit into a 5 gallon bucket and moved it around by hand. Well, 5 gallons x 8.3 pounds per gallon comes in at 41.5 pounds and that got heavy plus it was sloshing around. I used a hole saw and put a hole in a lid with a rubber gasket and strapped it to a dolly. It still sloshed some out through the lid until the fluid level went down and the dolly made it way, way easier on my back. Some duct tape to cover the hole and seal around the hose solved that problem.
This is a 5-gallon Ace Hardware pail with a sealing lid strapped to an old dolly with a bungee cord. You can see all the long white siphon hose that comes with the Ryobi. You have a ton of tubing to work with. This worked better and when I sealed the top with duct tape it was solid but I wanted more capacity.
Safety Note
Insecticide is inherently toxic and you need to protect yourself. I wear gloves, usually a face mask (except for photos in this article), am very careful to watch the direction of the wind and take a shower with soap as soon as I am done. John, my buddy with the Tomahawk, wears painter’s Tyvek coveralls, goggles, rubber gloves and a respirator. John is taking the safest approach and what I want to stress to you is that you don’t want to coat yourself in this stuff as if it were water – it’s not. Follow the safety guidelines for whatever insecticide you decide to use and take precautions.
Coverage
So, the unit was proving itself but it was annoying to go refill the unit part way through the property. Our 1.5 acre lot is flat and bordered by a ton of brush and trees. I found that I could get really good coverage with 10 gallons of spray (1 oz Talstar to one gallon of water) and man could I nuke the brush and undergrowth. I could see the spray running off leaves and and stuff glistening wet.
Getting a Bigger and Better Tank
So, armed with the good results, I decided to get a 10 gallon tank. In searching online, it turns out there are a ton of vendors but only a few actual manufacturers. I went with a Act Roto-Mold model VT-10 10-gallon tank. I ordered it from Tank Depot and it arrived about a week and a half later.
By the way, the tank was $57.99 and shipping was $48.62! Ouch. None of the local farm stores had a tank that size in-stock otherwise I would have bought local. You can definitely just use a bucket if you want to — it worked fine for me in terms of reliability and performance. I just wanted to reduce the trips back to refill the tank.
In terms of weight, even though I was using a dolly, I didn’t want the unit to be a bear to pull. A 10 gallon tank weighs about 83 pounds when full. The dolly with a full 10-gallon tank is very “do-able” for me as I walk around the lawn pulling the unit.
Doing the Plumbing
One irritating thing was that the engineering drawings said there was a 3/4″ pipe fitting at the bottom. That fitting is actually 1″ so I had to return the PVC valve I bought and get the right size. Also, for whatever reason it is shipped lose. I had to tighten down the tank’s pipe fitting prior to installing the valve and other fittings.
Ryobi designed their hose nicely. It’s secured to the ends via fittings and it was very easy for me to remove their filter end and push it onto a 3/8″ barb fitting and secure it with a hose clamp. By the way, they do give you 20 feet of hose and I plan on going back and probably cutting it in half at some point. I velcro wrapped the extra to the dolly and it’s just way more than I think I need for this application. I’ll save the left-over of course just in case.
The Proline 107-135 is made from PVC and has 1″ female NPT fittings on both ends. It’s installed into the tank via a small male-to-male piece of PVC pipe. Bushings were used to step it down to a 3/8″ barb fitting that was used to connect to the supplied Ryobi siphon hose. It works great.Note I turned the valve assembly to the side. As I pull the dolly along everything is at an angle so by having the outlet at the side more if the liquid can come out before sucking air. I did use a ratchet clamp to secure the tank to the dolly. It’s a lot of weight and I don’t want it shifting around on me. Quick comment – the Ryobi’s pump does need to prime so expect it to expel air until it draws liquid. Also, I used their same siphon hose to not constrain the pump. It does a heck of a good job. Note I am spraying with the wind and letting it carry the droplets even further into the brush. Normally, I am wearing a face mask.Let me show you a video of the spray pattern – it works great!!
Conclusion
Boy, am I happy with this set up. I spent about $300 on the sprayer, tank, strap and pipe fittings. The dolly is close to 20 years old so I am not counting that. I’ve put about 70 gallons of mix through the sprayer and used the tank system three times now. The combination of tank, dolly and Ryobi sprayer is fantastic and will be using it going forward.
If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.
My wife and I ran into a first for us – she went to unlock our 2008 Toyota Highlander and it wouldn’t unlock with either remote. Yeah, I figured the battery was dead as we hadn’t run it for maybe two months due to the pandemic crap. We put it on storage and I really hadn’t thought about the battery … until the doors wouldn’t unlock.
How to get in the highlander with just the key fob?
Okay, I tried both key fobs and my wife was right – no sounds of any kind came from the Highlander. There was a key slot in the door so I figured Toyota must have had some kind of plan. We bought the car… truck… thing, used and never needed to get in manually until now.
I knew with other keyless cars that I had seen in the past there was a backup key that could flick out of the fob so I took a close look at the fob for the Highlander. There was a small rectangular button on the side with the image of a key on it.
I pushed on it and nothing happened. I then looked at the attachment where the key ring connected and noticed it looked really beefy. The button wasn’t the key, it was a rocker that unlocked the key to pull out.
There’s the release button right there. Push on the circular dot for that end of the release to push in.So push the dot in and pull from the end and the key slides right out of the end with your key ring.So there’s your skeleton backup key. Just reverse the operation to push it back in.
Not Home Free – Expect to Lubricate the Lock
Okay, I saw one key slot in the driver’s door and thought I was home free. Nope. Wouldn’t turn. Not only that, there were no other key slots because I thought I would simply try another one.
There’s the one manual key slot to the right of the handle. You do not want to break your little key off in there.
Okay folks, piece of advice here from past mistakes – don’t crank on the key or you will break it and then you are completely out of luck and will need to pay a ton to get help. I busted a key in college trying to do just that and had to enter from the passenger side and slide across for almost a year before I could afford to have the door fixed.
Push the red tube all the way to the back of the lock and start spraying as you pull it out. Why that way? I tend to find I make less of a mess. I am still standing their with a towel to wipe up the black goo as it runs out. I sprayed and tried the key three times. After the third spray and testing, the mechanism freely turned. This stuff works great for sticking door and ignition key cylinders by the way. I keep it in stock.
So, if the key will not turn, spray lubricant in the slot. You will get a ton of conflicting advice on the Internet. What I have always used is Lock-Ease. Put the little red tube on the nozzle and hose down the inside of the key slot starting as far back as you can. Try and turn the key. If it still will not turn then spray it again. What I have found is that most of the time things turn fee with the first try and almost always by the third. I think the solvent that is carrying the lubricating graphite helps free up what is sticking and then the graphite takes it from there.
Okay, so the door was open and now I could open the hood. The battery read 0 volts – empty and introduced a new hurdle.
Why Smart Chargers Aren’t Always
So this takes us to the topic of smart chargers. The designers built in all kinds of safe guards including the need for a voltage to be present before they start. I really like my NOCO Genius chargers and was using one of the G26000 models. Here’s what I tried:
Just attached the charger – it would not switch to charging
Went to boost mode – it would sense the lack of voltage and switch off
I tried turning on the 5A 12 volt supply mode and that was just enough to make the security system chirp and reset over and over … crap.
So much for the easiest ones. That meant I needed to try and trick the charger. I brought my 96 Landcruiser over and connected good old jumper cables to start charging the “dead” battery and also hooked up a digital meter. It showed the alternator was cranking out 14.09 volts and as soon as I disconnected the positive cable from the Landcruiser, the meter showed the volts dropping down through 13 volts down into the 12s and so forth over the space of a few seconds.
Now this is the trick, for about 5-7 seconds the “dead” battery would appear to have enough juice for me to connect and start the NOCO. So, I staged stuff and had the gear ready to go. I charged the battery for a minute or two, disconnected the positive jumper cable from the Landcruiser, safely moved it out if the way and quickly attached the NOCO charger and it started charging. I jumped the dead battery just enough for it to show a charge to the NOCO that then turned on and did the rest. By the way, I am not faulting the NOCO. They are great chargers and I own three of them right now.
I really like the NOCO G26000 charger and definitely recommend it and their other chargers. Here. the battery is past 50%. It just so happens my camera caught the flashing 75% light while it was illuminated.
After about 12 hours the battery was fully charged and I then set the NOCO to repair mode to desulfinate the plates. The battery appears to be okay and we’ll see what it looks like come this fall when the temperatures start cooling off — the colder it is the harder it is for batteries to work and the marginal ones fail.
Lessons Learned
First, I now know where the spare key is. Second, I plan to hook up my smaller NOCO G7200 charger and run the cable under the power out of the hood so I can periodically top the battery off. Modern vehicles have a ton of electronics in them so I am not overly surprised it ran out of juice.
I hope this post helps you out!
If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.
One of my favorite move lines comes from Aliens when Ellen Ripley says, “I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.” While I would like to do that with mosquitoes, it’s just not an option currently.
Not on the table for mosquitoes yet though it does sound effective. The collateral damage is hard to justify though 🙂
This will be our third year using it and I just applied our first dose the other night – 1oz Talstar per gallon of water and than I go spray it on the bushes, around the buildings, under the eves etc. When I went to buy more Talstar off Amazon, they would not deliver it to my area and never really explained why so I figured I better blog about where to find it and also the My 4 Sons sprayer that isn’t on Amazon any longer.
This is the 3/4 gallon (96oz) size Talstar P Professional insecticide by FMC. I have an acre and a half. I use 10-15 gallons of spray depending on what all I am treating and how heavy I am applying it. That means I use 10-15oz of Talstar per treatment (1 oz TP to 1 oz water).
Buying Talstar P Pro Insecticide
My big problem this year that I wanted to make you aware of is Amazon – at least in my case they will not deliver it to our address. I’m getting increasingly frustrated by Amazon so I now buy it off eBay:
My 4 Sons M4 Sprayer
The next thing I want to do is give you a “one year later” report on the M4 sprayer made by My 4 Sons. I’m happy to report it has held up great and their customer service was exceptional. Note, I definitely drained it completely before freezing weather set in.
This is my actual sprayer the morning of 5/2/2020
Here are some lessons learned on my part and a couple of minor issues I encountered:
I bought way too much hose when all I needed was to just tow it around like a golf cart and spray stuff. I took the extra hose and saved it just in case.
I bought all kinds of sprayer gizmos and all I use is the wand. It has a brass tip, is adjustable and worked just fine for me.
The red elastic straps they provided did not hold up – the tank would fall of the cart. I just went to ace hardware and bought some 1″ nylon straps with buckles and cut them to size. I told My 4 Sons about what I did and am not sure if they changed how they are securing the tank.
One wheel broke and My 4 sons promptly sent me a replacement at no cost
The gasket on the lid was goofy and they sent me an improved model at no cost
This Spring I could not find the battery charger and ordered a replacement part from them. The price was reasonable and on their website – of course I found the original shortly there after.
As mentioned, I’ve already done my first application this year and the unit is doing great – they aren’t on Amazon any longer though. I want you to know they are a reputable firm with a good product and customer service. I would recommend that you go direct to My 4 Sons.
Just to be clear, Talstar will work in any sprayer – it’s pretty much the same viscosity as water so any pump sprayer – manual or batter powered – will work. I needed something bigger because of the size of our lot.
Conclusion
The Talstar P Pro and M4 sprayer are a great combination that I would recommend to anyone trying to deal with mosquitoes. It’s cheaper than a service and way, way more effective than the cheap stuff you buy in a store.
I hope this helps you out.
If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.
Everyone is scrambling for face masks to protect themselves and it makes perfect sense. On one hand we want to protect ourselves and our loved ones and on the other, we don’t want to spread the illness either. At this point, if you are going to the store or other area with people, you really should be wearing a mask. Particles will float in the air and that is bad news for everyone.
The recent CDC guidance to wear face masks seems to be mainly aimed at capturing droplets from the wearer so as to not infect others. It’s not really aimed at protecting the wearer from inhaling. I would recommend you do some reading about what amazing people are figuring out in terms of making your own personal protective face masks using shop towels and other materials. In general, if you can see light readily through it, such as a basic T-shirt or bandanna, you really aren’t stopping anything. I’d like to help improve your odds and want to share some resources with you.
A study found that denim, 80-120 thread count bed sheets, paper towel, canvas and shop towels are the top 5 materials for face masks combining both filtering and breathability.
There is a new material called “Filti” that can hit N95 filtration that you can buy. Click here to learn more.
Buy the shop towels at stores such as home improvement, hardware, automotive and industrial supply stores. Blue shop towels are *not* regular kitchen towels. If you try to buy them online they will likely be insanely expensive. You will probably pay $3-4 from a store for a roll with 50 sheets. They often come in single rolls, doubles, six packs, 12 packs and boxes. Don’t go nuts and hoard them please.
The following are shop towelas and 1/16″ bungee/elastic cord for making masks at Amazon
The following is a great how-to video. By the way, the accordion folds help with fit and increase the surface area which will make breathing easier. The larger the surface area then the easier air flows.
By the way, there are tons and tons of designs as media and bloggers share advice. Google and read by all means – educate yourself. Always ask – does this make sense? Also remember that you need to both be able to inhale as well as exhale.
Quick test to see if your mask has any chance of helping you – Dr. Gady Abramson
Cleaning Face Masks For Re-Use
With face masks, assume they are contaminated when you remove them with your hands. Immediately wash your hands and do not rub your eyes, touch other surfaces, etc.
Now, you can disinfect these things and other PPE using an oven. Heat them to 70C/158F for 30 minutes. Be sure not to touch other surfaces around your oven. Clean all surfaces just to be safe.
1/4 cup bleach per gallon of water for tables,bathrooms and toys
1/3 cup of bleach per gallon of water in case of accidents or illness.
I hope this helps you out – we’re all in this together.
If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.
Up front, please let me stress that this post if for informational purposes only. The author will not be liable if you decide to attempt to make or use pepper spray. You assume all liability going forward.
Please abide by all laws and regulations in your area – it is illegal to possess pepper spray in some places let alone use it.
Last but not least, please follow safe practices if you choose to attempt making pepper spray.
Pepper spray irritates the eyes, lungs and skin. The intent is to cause extreme temporary discomfort and allow the defender a chance to get away or the police officer to more easily restrain a subject. The reason I researched and wrote this post is that a number of people are worried about personal and family safety and how to ward off attackers given the craziness with people panicking over COVID-19.
For one reason or another, not everyone can buy a firearm and. thanks to government regulation, many law abiding citizens can’t even purchase pepper spray. Now, machining a firearm and its costs are beyond many but making pepper spray is something people might want to consider but there are a whole lot of potential issues I want you to think through before you make some home brew and pour it in a spray bottle.
What is pepper spray anyways?
As you can guess from the name, the main ingredient is technically known as oleresin capsicum (OC) is derived from peppers. OC is an oily organic resin obtained from finely ground chili powder where the capsaicin of the pepper is removed using an alcohol – typically ispropyl or ethanol. The capsaicin is most concentrated in the parts of the pepper that hold the seeds and the rest of the pepper to a lesser extent.
The following video does a great job explaining how pepper spray affects the human body and how it is made:
How do you make a pepper spray?
Do not rub your eyes and be careful breathing any airborne powders or liquids. I’d recommend wearing nitrile gloves, eye protection and a dust mask – even a basic nuisance dust one.
Please abide by all laws and regulations in your area and follow safe practices if you choose to attempt making pepper spray.
Let me tell you up front that I am not incredibly impressed by anything I have read or watched. Do you research and be very, very careful.
The “heat” of pepper varieties is measured by the Scoville Heat Units (SHU). The SHU value of a given pepper is measuring the concentration of capsaicinoids, which is premoninantly capsaicin – the part of the pepper we need. So, the higher the Scoville rating, the hotter the pepper is and the stronger the pepper spray will be.
The above is a Scoville Scale with popular peppers rated. You can see that Cayenne is in the middle with some god awful hot ones at the top.
Note – Focus on the peppers not some of the weird home brews folks are making where they are adding in other ingredients because they seem to be irritants based on their own past experience – for example, people adding salt, black pepper and even curry.
Going back to peppers, bear in mind that commercial pepper sprays range from 2-5.3 million SHU. Just because you think Cayenne pepper (30-50,000 SHU) or a Jalapeno (2,500-8,000 SHU) is hot does not mean it is adequate. You need to be thinking about the hottest peppers you can find and using them. Let me give you specifics of the 10 hottest peppers
Safety comment – you do need to realize pepper sprays made by the hot peppers over 80,000 SHU are dangerous and may cause permanent damage to eyes, etc. You better not spray this hot stuff on anyone without real good causeand be extra careful working with them!
With the god awful hot peppers, I have no idea how you can safely test your concoction. Honestly, at some point of capsaicin concentration, you are going to cause chemical burns. If you are trying to make liquid hell, you have some very dangerous stuff going on. Please don’t test it on other people, pets, animals, etc.
First extraction video
This gentleman does a good job showing you how to extract the the capsaicin that we need. Note, he uses acetone but I’d recommend an alcohol as it is less volatile and doesn’t dissolve anywhere near as many varieties of plastics as acetone does. There’s solid guidance other than that.
Video Two – The author makes and tests his pepper spray
This fellow both made his own pepper spray and then tests it while reporting the results. Notice how he points out the delay — keep that in mind.
Some mistakes I noticed during my research
When you look around on Youtube and reading blog posts, there are a lot of fundamental mistakes that people make that I want you to be aware of:
Your goal is to make a concentrate – start with the hottest pepper you can find
You need to extract the capsaicin so grind up the pepper – don’t just add flakes.
Focus on the pepper!! Folks adding in other stuff may sound cool but I am not convinced curry powder, salt, black pepper, etc. will help. One fellow even added in a pain killer (lidocain) for reasons I can’t begin to fathom.
Use a ton of powder/ground pepper. You want to make a concentrate and not something really diluted. Now is not the time to go cheap.
Use alcohol and not acetone unless you know your plastic can handle it – many household/cheap plastics can’t.
Allow the alcohol time to dissolve the capsaicins from the peppers. Use a sealed container and give it at least 12 hours to a day while shaking or stirring periodically. A sealed container makes the most sense to me unless you want the solvent to evaporate off and make a concentrate, which is a legitimate consideration.
You definitely need to strain the resulting mixture. Any type of sprayer will be at risk of clogging if there are solids in the liquid. The folks with a stew of materials floating around in their dispensers are at risk of a clog just when they need the spray the most. I was really surprised at the number of authors who had dispensers with solid remnants floating around.
Nobody seems to know how long this stuff will last – 3 months might be a starting assumption. It’s not indefinite.
Delivery mechanism considerations
I’ve seen everything from squeeze bottles, to squirt guns to home made single shot stream sprayers. Consider the following:
whatever you select needs to be leak proof or you will have an awful mess.
You don’t want it accidentally going off in your purse or pocket … or you will have an awful mess.
If you do a charged can of some type – ensure the propellant doesn’t slowly leak out and/or have a means to recharge it. Even commercial units will slowly lose their propellant charge.
Remember to strain the liquid you’re going to use or floating solids will likely clog up your device — and probably when you need the spray the most. Seriously, it blew my mind how few did this.
You need to test to see how far the liquid can travel. In general you want a stream and not a fog both to concentrate delivery plus you do not want the person near you! Also, bear in mind that a mist will float around and land on others – potentially even yourself.
Okay folks, the following is so you know what to do if you get this stuff on you. The short answer is saline, non-mint antacid in distilled water in a 50/50 mix placed in a squeeze bottle to neutralize the chemical or some form of water and mild soap.
Reality is not like the movies – especially with home grown pepper sprays. Expect attackers to respond differently to pepper spray.. Some will immediately lose visibility and the will to fight, some may have a delay before the react and some will keep fighting no matter what due to drugs or whatever. Do not expect an attacker to magically drop to the ground.
The best way to win a fight is avoid the situation – don’t walk alone, avoid dark allies, stay alert, and so forth. View this stuff as a last resort or part of a layered defense that you have thought about.
Conclusion
Someone casually making pepper spray without a lot of thought put into it will likely have very mixed unsafe unreliable results. I didn’t find one video or blog post that I felt addressed my concerns for reliability so I collected the above for you to consider. If you can buy commercial pepper spray, I would highly recommend you do so.
The information presented here is for people who need protection and home-made pepper spray might be their last option. Do your research, plan and build with safety in mind. Last comment, don’t rely solely on pepper spray – consider other things like loud personal alarms, clubs, saps, fake money clips, take a self-defense class, etc.
Again, please, please be safe if you make anything discussed here. Also, be aware of any laws and regulations that are applicable. In some locales, pepper spray is treated virtually the same as a firearm and civilian use is strictly prohibited.
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