Jehan Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 Hi everyone, we want to make sure all our black backdrop cloths etc are treated to be fire retardant. The material is a low grade cotton, black. I was looking at this for advice. From MIT about making flame retardant liquid that you soak the fabric in from a mixture of boric acid and boric powder and water . Recipes Because Fire retardant can be expensive, this is a compilation of a few recipes formaking fire retardant solutions for use on fabrics that use the method of depositing tinycrystals on the fiber surface. Formula 1: Borax - 6 parts, 6 lbs, Boric acid - 5 parts, 5 lbs, Water - 100 parts, 12gallons. Steep fabric in cool solution until impregnated. Heavy applications by spray orbrush are usually reasonably effective. Repeat if necessary. This is good for theaterscenery fabric, and recommended for rayon and natural fabrics. Yields a 8 - 12 %weighting. Formula 2: Borax - 7 parts, 7 lbs, Boric acid - 3 parts, 3 lbs, Water - 100 parts, 12 gallons.Water can be varied according to absorptive capacity of fabric. For rayon and sheerfabrics, these same amounts of borax and boric acid can be used with 17 gallons of water.Hand-wring for an 8 - 10% weighting on fabric. Flexibility and softness will be retainedwithout dustiness, and also microorganism growth is prevented. This is from: http://ocw.mit.edu/c.../flameretar.pdf There's also a wikihow page on the same that says about the same thing. http://www.wikihow.c...Cloth-FireproofMethod 3 in particular. Do you know anything abotu this, can you point me to someone who can advise us on how go go about doing this correctly? THanks Jehan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jehan Posted February 20, 2016 Author Share Posted February 20, 2016 ]Hi everyone, we want to make sure all our black backdrop cloths etc are treated to be fire retardant.The material is a low grade cotton, black. I was looking at this for advice. From MIT about making flame retardant liquid that you soak the fabric in from a mixture of boric acid and boric powder and water . Recipes Because Fire retardant can be expensive, this is a compilation of a few recipes for making fire retardant solutions for use on fabrics that use the method of depositing tiny crystals on the fiber surface. Formula 1: Borax - 6 parts, 6 lbs, Boric acid - 5 parts, 5 lbs, Water - 100 parts, 12gallons. Steep fabric in cool solution until impregnated. Heavy applications by spray or brush are usually reasonably effective. Repeat if necessary. This is good for theater scenery fabric, and recommended for rayon and natural fabrics. Yields a 8 - 12 %weighting. Formula 2: Borax - 7 parts, 7 lbs, Boric acid - 3 parts, 3 lbs, Water - 100 parts, 12 gallons.Water can be varied according to absorptive capacity of fabric. For rayon and sheerfabrics, these same amounts of borax and boric acid can be used with 17 gallons of water.Hand-wring for an 8 - 10% weighting on fabric. Flexibility and softness will be retainedwithout dustiness, and also microorganism growth is prevented. This is from: There's also a wikihow page on the same that says about the same thing.http://www.wikihow.c...Cloth-Fireproof Method 3 in particular.Do you know anything abotu this, can you point me to someone who can advise us on how go go about doing this correctly?Thanks Jehan Moderation: I've attempted top edit the html out - but the link doesn't work as it's incomplete. Please - check your post after you submit it because the forum software uses bb code, and copying from some websites with certain browsers picks up the html that confuses. You do get a chance to edit your posts for a short while before they lock. Paul Mods Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elsbury Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 Wow. That's super hard to read.instead of copying from Word or whatever can you copy to Notepad or another plain text editor to remove all that formatting garbage? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jehan Posted February 20, 2016 Author Share Posted February 20, 2016 It was formatted correctly when I pasted it in. I found this formula for creating material with which to treat fabric to become fire retardant. Does anyone know about this? Can anyone weigh in on good ways of treating fabric so that it is fire-resistant? We've got a blackbox theatre full of fabric and want to coat it all with this something that does the job. Formula 1: Borax - 6 parts, 6 lbs, Boric acid - 5 parts, 5 lbs, Water - 100 parts, 12gallons. Steep fabric in cool solution until impregnated. Heavy applications by spray or brush are usually reasonably effective. Repeat if necessary. This is good for theater scenery fabric, and recommended for rayon and natural fabrics. Yields a 8 - 12 %weighting. Formula 2: Borax - 7 parts, 7 lbs, Boric acid - 3 parts, 3 lbs, Water - 100 parts, 12 gallons.Water can be varied according to absorptive capacity of fabric. For rayon and sheer fabrics, these same amounts of borax and boric acid can be used with 17 gallons of water. Hand-wring for an 8 - 10% weighting on fabric. Flexibility and softness will be retained without dustiness, and also microorganism growth is prevented.] Moderation: demangled Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elsbury Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 What does your insurance say about home made fire retardant- would you be covered? If there was an accident could you prove your homemade solution was effective? I'd buy the commercial stuff, personally, for peace of mind:) Also what kind of fabric is it- some fabrics are inherently flame retardant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roderick Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 The problem with these 'do it yourself' recipes is that you have no guarantee it does actually work. The only way to properly treat fabrics for use in theatre is to use commercially manufactured chemicals and follow the instructions.Anything else is just a token lipservice that makes people feel safe but actually makes matters worse. I live by a very simple rule, if you can't afford to do it right, you can't afford to do it at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ontoprigger Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 Not sure if there are any regulations in India, but in many parts of the world you could not use home made fire retardants unless you then had it tested by a lab and a certificate issued, that would be way more expensive than buying 5liters of Flambar. the problems you may have with homemade, or any flame proofing if not used correctly is white salt marks on the black fabric. also you would need to know if they have been treated before, will that have any reaction with what' you want to use.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jehan Posted February 21, 2016 Author Share Posted February 21, 2016 The problem with these 'do it yourself' recipes is that you have no guarantee it does actually work. The only way to properly treat fabrics for use in theatre is to use commercially manufactured chemicals and follow the instructions.Anything else is just a token lipservice that makes people feel safe but actually makes matters worse. I live by a very simple rule, if you can't afford to do it right, you can't afford to do it at all. That'd be great. What am I looking for? I live in Mumbai, btw. Our recently created black box (FYI) is about 500 yards away from where that Made in India Fire happenned. (That wasn't what woke us up to this BTW). I have called a number of 'fire-saftey' companies specialising in fire proofing systems, etc. None of them seem to even KNOW what fire retardant chemical is. I've seen the chemicals availiable online but all in the US/UK etc. Nothing I can find here. I don't even know what to search for. If I search by brand name, I get geographically specific availiability. I don't even have a generic name to search for that may give me an idea of where the commercial stuff is availiable here in India. Have every intention of doing it right. Affordability becomes secondary when it comes to fire saftey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jehan Posted February 21, 2016 Author Share Posted February 21, 2016 What is the commercial stuff called? what is the generic chemical name (so I don't just search for brands most not availiable in india). Its a rich cotton mix. Not much in the way of poly-anything. What does your insurance say about home made fire retardant- would you be covered? If there was an accident could you prove your homemade solution was effective? I'd buy the commercial stuff, personally, for peace of mind:) Also what kind of fabric is it- some fabrics are inherently flame retardant Also, this isn't *MY* home made solution. I found these here http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Cloth-Fireproof and herehttp://ocw.mit.edu/courses/music-and-theater-arts/21m-735-technical-design-scenery-mechanisms-and-special-effects-spring-2004/assignments/flameretar.pdf (The second one is MIT btw). So since I saw them on two sources I am looking to explore their legitimacy by having my team put together about 5 liters of the stuff and testing it out. What I wanted to know from ANYONE here, appart from the 'go commercial' , is does anyone have experience with such recipies, does anyone know of any cases of this being used successfully or is this like the internet saying... papaya leaf extract prevents dengue (a complete myth). J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw1981 Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 AIUI our insurance is pretty clear on requiring us to keep a product sheet confirming the product characteristics etc, I suspect even internet recipes won;t come with that kind of paperwork. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw1981 Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 If affordability comes second, just buy from US / UK? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin Pratt Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Rosco make flame retardant chemicals under the name Roscoflamex. According to the website, their sales contact for India is Andreas Dessloch, +49 (0)172 525 5174, andreas.dessloch@rosco.comPresumably they must have suppliers out there who cater for the Bollywood film industry... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Flambar or flamebar is another brand name. Even with a commercial treatment like this, applying it properly to the fabric is quite difficult. You have to put the right amount on and evenly coat all areas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 any attempt at homebrewing in the UK has some problems due to the way our legislation is framed. So many things here are risk assessed as a means of transferring and managing the legal obligations on employers and venues. These recipes may well work really well, but we reply on published testing and data sheets to help us decide what we do is safe, above, hopefully, what the law requires. The snag with home brewing this stuff is the recipe itself - is the stuff actually any good, and perhaps more importantly, when applied, is the coverage satisfactory? Does it stain? How quickly does it dry? Residue? Somebody could test a piece of fabric and produce a determination of effectiveness, but I suspect all of us would simply buy the usual solution, read and file away the data sheets, and then apply it as per the manufacturers instructions. No point getting grumpy because we don't like what you're proposing - clearly, we don't - and see many practical problems and more importantly, responsibility issues. Would YOU put your name to a piece of paper that said your home brew was safe? I wouldn't. I could research the US stuff, but I'm no chemist. I have no simple way to ensure the ingredients I buy have the same potency or effectiveness as the stuff from the US. Boric Acid - 5 parts. That's by volume? Doesn't it depend on the strength of the solution? You say it is NOT your home made solution, but it clearly is (legally) you are using a recipe provided by somebody in a foreign country. I think you said it was from MIT? MIT themselves, or a first year student's homework project which he failed? In the old days here, the fire officer tried to set fire to a curtain with a lighter. If it went woosh - it failed. If it just smouldered after the prescribed number of seconds, it passed. Now we just produce a piece of paper that says it is safe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jivemaster Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 There are several DIY formulations that may improve on the fabric's tendency to burn. In the UK and probably many other places formal legislation requires better than that, and requires an inherently fire retardant fabric like wool serge, wool felt or synthetics like nomex. While a formula found on the web MAY produce some fire retardance there is no way for anyone to recommend it because there is no certainty about how well it may work for formula or method of application reasons. The optimum solution is probably to start with an inherently fire retardant fabric. What sort of licensing regime exists in your location. In the UK you buy something with certificate of fire retardance and keep the certificate safely. Maybe you should try to work to that standard. If you have venue insurance then they will likely want to see such paperwork. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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