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Author Topic: Smells that bring you back  (Read 43232 times)

Offline john e. holliday

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Re: Smells that bring you back
« Reply #50 on: October 19, 2016, 08:58:07 AM »
At my age there are aromas that cause memory cells to wake up.  like when my Mother-in-law would bake fresh bread it would bring back the time my Mother did a lot of baking back then.  The aroma of Ambroid and Duco cement for model planes.  The castor smell in Testors fuel as well as K&B 100.  There are so many I could tie up the internet.  Burning rubber in the 1/4 mile. H^^
John E. "DOC" Holliday
10421 West 56th Terrace
Shawnee, KANSAS  66203
AMA 23530  Have fun as I have and I am still breaking a record.

Offline Mike Keville

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Re: Smells that bring you back
« Reply #51 on: October 19, 2016, 09:28:13 PM »
Testors "STA" ... Comet fuel proofer ... Ambroid ... Powermist fuel.  (Younger folks won't have a clue.)
FORMER member, "Academy of Multi-rotors & ARFs".

Offline George Higgins

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Re: Smells that bring you back
« Reply #52 on: October 21, 2016, 05:23:08 PM »
Tincture of Merbane (Mebane?) Color Purple.

Back when I was first (1959-1960) learning how to fly Stunt (Super Clown-Ringmaster) I meet Dave Chapman at our local Flying at the Quincy Mass YMCA. He took me under his wing and taught me how to Fly AMA Stunt (3' Bottoms). Our Club was limited to Level flight, Inside Loops,Lazy Eights, Lazy Wing Overs and Inverted.

We did a lot of Practicing back then. It was a period when NITRO pricing was going out of sight. We/Dave decide to make our OWN Fuel.

Dave said he had substituted Tincture of Merbane for the Nitro. There were 2 distinct difference in the Fuel. First was the smell, A Sweet Fruity Aroma, Second the exhaust was a "PURPLISH" Color"

Oh, Best Fuel I ever Ran!
« Last Edit: October 21, 2016, 05:40:29 PM by George Higgins »
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Put things away in 96.
Started vacationing in NH on Lake Winnipesaukee. Bought a boat and a Snowmobile. Moved here permanently 16 years ago.

I still have "ALL" my Stuff in the cellar. I still get the urge to pickup one of my "HUNT" handles every once in a while.

Offline Norm Furutani

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Re: Smells that bring you back
« Reply #53 on: May 21, 2018, 01:11:14 PM »
When I was a kid (now 70+) we used to make our own sanding sealer with talc and dope. The talc was my Mom's Cashmere Bouquet. Sanding produced a distinct pleasant smell that I had forgotten. Forward to the 80's when I got back to building FF, I remembered the talc and dope but was using J&J baby powder. Also a distinct smell but reminded me of changing the kids diapers! Cruising through Kmart, I saw a container of Cashmere Bouquet, brought it home and mixed a new batch of sealer. Instant flashback to the 50's! On top of that, the ingredients list calcium stearate and I think it makes a better sealer. Tossed the J&J!

Norm

Offline Ken Culbertson

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Re: Smells that bring you back
« Reply #54 on: May 21, 2018, 01:20:44 PM »
What I just thought after seeing Mike's post , was how many times I would be sitting in class chewing glue off my fingers.
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Offline Ken Culbertson

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Re: Smells that bring you back
« Reply #55 on: May 21, 2018, 01:43:00 PM »
Tincture of Merbane (Mebane?) Color Purple.

Back when I was first (1959-1960) learning how to fly Stunt (Super Clown-Ringmaster) I meet Dave Chapman at our local Flying at the Quincy Mass YMCA. He took me under his wing and taught me how to Fly AMA Stunt (3' Bottoms). Our Club was limited to Level flight, Inside Loops,Lazy Eights, Lazy Wing Overs and Inverted.

We did a lot of Practicing back then. It was a period when NITRO pricing was going out of sight. We/Dave decide to make our OWN Fuel.

Dave said he had substituted Tincture of Merbane for the Nitro. There were 2 distinct difference in the Fuel. First was the smell, A Sweet Fruity Aroma, Second the exhaust was a "PURPLISH" Color"

Oh, Best Fuel I ever Ran!

I learned stunt in nearby Washington DC. in 61 at the ripe age of 14.  We flew in a parking lot across the "Pot-o-muck" from Lincoln Memorial.  To this day the smell of raw sewage makes me want to go flying.  I can back you on the 3' bottoms (even though nobody seems to believe me) but you are on your own with the purple exhaust.  Are you sure it wasn't Potomac river water you were using for Nitro?

Just to follow up, later in life when the raw sewage came in the form of my kids diapers, another smell all of us from that era remember - AeroGloss Clear and talcum powder!

Ken
« Last Edit: May 21, 2018, 02:01:16 PM by Ken Culbertson »
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Offline john e. holliday

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Re: Smells that bring you back
« Reply #56 on: May 22, 2018, 10:08:54 AM »
Yes those were the days when Talc was mixed into the cleat Testors dope. H^^
John E. "DOC" Holliday
10421 West 56th Terrace
Shawnee, KANSAS  66203
AMA 23530  Have fun as I have and I am still breaking a record.

Offline L0U CRANE

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Re: Smells that bring you back
« Reply #57 on: June 26, 2018, 02:18:14 PM »
Bump, I guess...

DUCO, sure. Ambroid of course. SIG until they added skunk essence to deter the "recreational sniffers." Smelled sort of like a poorly mucked out elephant compound in a zoo.

Testor's fuel proof dope - most smelled alike, but the red, and particularly the black could be id'd two rooms away...

Superfuel, in the can and in the exhaust..

Nitrobenzene? The only 'shoe polish scent' fuel we found was Francisco. (Brooklyn, NY, late '50's?) Learned  something about scent-attracted bugs. Fill your fuel bulb fast and put the cap back on quick, unless you like brushing a small horde of bees out of your way. I don't think the bees would appreciate it, but never put it to a test. Waved them away with a rag, then worked quick.

No one mentioned SIG 5% and 10% nitro, 20% or 25% castor Champion. Mid-70's? Downwind of a rich stunt run, the remainder of unburned nitro essence was sweet and clear.

More recently, I discovered that some diesel 'kerosenes' did not have the remembered tramp steamer bilge stench, particularly in the exhaust stuff. Auto #2 gas station diesel is very clean unless you go bonkers on load and compression. Ether smell gone by combustion; remaining vapors reminded me of a local private Chinese family's "steam laundry" in my neighborhood. More a clean steam smell than rough sludge from an over-age Mack chain-drive truck's bowels. Almost too nice to be from diesel, but at least the ether is still there in the raw fuel...

Of course, back in the days of bolted-down wooden desks and real slate blackboards, a whiff of Murphy's Oil Soap brings back the first days of school in the Fall. But that's off topic...
\BEST\LOU

Offline Fredvon4

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Re: Smells that bring you back
« Reply #58 on: June 26, 2018, 02:45:00 PM »
We all might agree....dope...Ambriod glue, tester's glue, and shoe polish smelling fuels....but living over seas a lot=== I got to like the smell of a coal fired heater, or coal tar road work or roofing....wife is actually nauseated by that smell ---it but evokes such strong memories for me it is pleasant

Other side...we spent a day fishing in the ocean around 1965....wind blew the diesel exhaust all over us all day long...lost lunch a LOT   to this day Ib can not tolerate the diesel exhaust small
"A good scare teaches more than good advice"

Fred von Gortler IV

Offline Hemi Steve

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Re: Smells that bring you back
« Reply #59 on: September 22, 2018, 05:39:23 PM »
Great subject.  like many here, the smell of Ambroid and Aerogloss dope is permanantly etched into my memory.  My wife of course hates the smells of model building but when I tell her that those are my "happy smells" she backs off with an eye roll.  I also remember the glue splotched legs on my Jeans and my mom giving me the devil about it.  All learned in the 1950's.

Steve

Offline jim ballard

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Re: Smells that bring you back
« Reply #60 on: September 28, 2018, 09:16:45 PM »
Or in the workshop wiping glue on my pants, drove my mom nuts!!!!
The one I remember the most is the SHOE POLISH aroma from high nitro fuel.

I remember both of these! My mother would come into my room holding a pair of jeans with glue stains and I would get a lecture. But most of all, I remember the smell of "shoe polish" around the racing and speed circles at contests I attended.

Tempting fate and gravity one more time....

Jim Ballard
Blackwell, TX
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