how to disolve teflon

[browniebob]

Folks,

I have some teflon that I'm trying to rid from a metal surface. I've tried everything from sandpaper to scraping it off with a soldering iron and wick. How can I dissolve this? Is there a clever way to clean up teflon from a metal surface? The surface is a screen/filter for filtering gunk out of water and it looks an awful lot like copper, but might have a coating on it as well.

Thanks,
BB

 

[btrueblood]

If you don't know what the substrate is for sure, I'd quit now, and look at ordering the part in bare metal & replace the old.

 

[arto]

Don't use heat - you could get "Fluoropolymer fever"

 

[Heckler]

The only way I know is to use heat but like ARTO mentioned you could inhale some bad toxic gas. telfon tends to outgas around 500 deg F. You might want to call Coating Technologies in Pheonix AZ because they use a co-deposited process call NP3 which is electroless nickel and PTFE. If they know how to put it on I'm sure they know how to take it off.

Best Regards,

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
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Do you trust your intuition or go with the flow?

 

[ScottI2R]

BB,
As they mention, Teflon gives off toxics when heated. One in specific is Flourine. Which, IIR, is toxic in like 5 ppB. Not nice stuff. I once walked off a job site in a laser cutting plant because the owner was cutting 1/2 inch teflon with insufficient ventilation.

Thought you might like to know this.
Scott

In a hundred years, it isn't going to matter anyway.