As I said in the previous tests, I'd give the paper strips another run once I found some bleach. Well, eventually I not only acquired bleach, but also had to go about getting some drano for sink-related issues. For those curious, this particular bleach is a 5.25% solution of sodium hypochlorite, and will have a pH level of approximately 12 to 12.5. The liquid drano is a mixture of liquid lye and sodium hypochlorite. This particular drano is in a gel form though, and despite my looking around I was unable to find anything other than this. Apparently, it has a pH level of around 13.5. So, since I'm unable to come across any harsher acids, at least we can test some strong alkalines. Not that I'd particularly want to HANDLE any stronger acids... and I've taken a half-dozen precautions when working with these fellas as is. A bottle of bleach and draino with glasses in front on a kitchen counter.

So if you're wondering about the plastic wrap, for these tests I covered my working area in saran wrap. I don't know what these will do to the surface of my freezer, and I don't want to know. All I know is that bleach and drano sit in plastic jugs, so I figured coating the area with plastic is a good idea. In either case, I thankfully had all four pen types still around after my last tests, so I cut some test strips and gave them a quick pre-writing. The regular and all weather test strips, with bleach pre written on them, laying on plastic wrap.
Both papers fared quite well in the 2-second test. I expected them to... y'know... feel a bit more fall-aparty. But... it's only been two seconds. The gel pens both bled into the paper a bit more (moreso on the regular paper), and the silver pen had some issues in general with either, but did better on the regular paper like usual. The original writing was virtually unchanged in either. The two second bleach text, showing slightly more blurring on the regular paper.
Here the paper took a bit more of a beating. Especially the regular paper. The 'bleeding' on the 2-second all-weather paper washed off, and it left a thinner line since it didn't soak in nearly as much as the regular paper. The 2-second silver ink was almost gone from the all-weather, but still held onto the regular. Writing on the all-weather paper after 2 minutes was fairly easy, although the silver pen wasn't that fond of getting started. The gel pen almost seemed to work better than the 2-second dip. The regular paper... was feeling the hurt. The pencil ripped right through, and the pen could barely get going. The gel pen was almost identical to the 2-second writing, and about same with the silver-pen... which strangely wrote better on the all-weather than after 2-seconds. The two test strips, with the regular paper looking very weak.
The papers were still holding together surpringly after 20 minutes! I had figured the regular paper would have turned to mush... but looks like that's reserved for acids, not bases. The pencil was trying to tear through on the all-weather, and didn't stand a chance on the regular paper. Actually... nothing much stood a chance on the regular paper except the gel pen, which bled deeply into it. At least on the all-weather paper I could get the inks going, somewhat. So mental note... if for some reason the geocache is submerged in bleach, a gel pen might actually be best. It also washed away a lot of the previous writings, just leaving ever-so-faint traces. At least all the 'pre-soak' writing remained. The text mostly missing from both strips, though slightly more on the all weather, and the regular paper barely in one piece.
So... with the bleach out of the way, let's kick it one more step up. Onto the drano! Now... the writing in all of these pictures... especially so with the drano... is because I didn't want to lean on the paper or the surface in general while doing this. For obvious reason, I didn't want to press drano into my skin and hands, or get it on my clothes. Thus, I mainly worked with plastic utensils to move stuff around, and wrote while not touching anything. Well, except for this pre-drano writing. The draino pre soak pieces of paper, sitting on plastic.
This stuff reminded me a bit of the oil. Since it was in a gel form, it seemed to want to slime everywhere. It did a lot more to the paper it seems, too. I could barely get the pencil or the pen going on EITHER paper, and the silver pen was completely useless on the all-weather and slightly useless on the regular. The only thing that seemed to be able to do much was the gel pen, which surprisingly didn't bleed into the drano gel like I thought it would. Although the gel is probably what made it hard for any of the others to write. The paper itself held up not bad... it just made writing annoying. The two strips of paper, with the regular soaked mostly through, and the all weather paper looking wetter as well.
The 2-minute soaking seemed to end up almost identical to the 2-second soaking. The regular paper deteriorated a bit more, but otherwise all of the pens and pencil seemed to have about the same ability to write as before. Everything sucked, except the gel pen. Although the regular paper was tearing through for most of the pens, and even had a hard time staying together for the gel pen. The regular paper was a bit 'stretchy', which made it annoying to write on when I'm trying not to lean on the paper to keep it steady. The original writings from when it was dry were seemingly unaffected. The two pieces of paper, showing the regular paper being very fragile, though both appear about the same colour.
Ok, looks like the drano takes some time to kick in. After 20 minutes, the regular paper was holding up about as well as when it had soaked in regular water for an hour. It was falling apart while trying to flatten it out, and was not fond at all of being written on. I managed to coax some silver pen onto it, and the gel pen managed to spit out a bit of ink onto it. It also wiped out most previous inks, and even most of the regular pen and silver pen from the pre-soak writing! The old pencil as always remained. The all-weather was feeling pretty weak, and the pencil was tearing through. I could barely get any writing going with the regular or silver pen... but I attribute that mainly to being unable to lean on the paper to hold it steady. The gel pen managed to write fairly good... so if my geocache is ever suberged in drano... a gel pen is the way to go. The regular paper broken apart into multiple pieces, with the all weather holding up, with the gel pen strangely writing excellently on it, and pencil of course.



The multiple fluids test (part 1) | The strength test


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