Soap Bubble Wiki
Register
Advertisement
RAD 1
 

I've had the ingredients for RAD for a while but had little time to do any bubble testing. Some decyl glucoside (a mild surfactant that Rick has found to improve RAD 1.0) arrived yesterday. It rained a little this morning and there was some decent humidity (88%). So, diluted some RAD 1.0 concentrate that I had mixed up six days ago.

NOTE: The original article title had Decyl Gluconate in it -- the additive was decyl glucoside. Oops!

I diluted two batches. Both had 500 ml RAD 1.0 concentrate and 500 ml of tap water. To one batch, I added 3.5 grams (was supposed to be 3.0, but I goofed) of decyl glucoside.

Both batches averaged over 10 bubbles per dip (and frequently got more) with my handy dandy small plastic wand.

I headed outside with two 30" tri-strings using Lehigh diamond braid cord which I often use for testing.

Temp: 65F. RH: 85%. The wind was mild to swirling.

My impression in the field was that the 1.0G batch (the one with the decyl glucoside) was generally more forgiving than the other and achieved some nice tubes. My subjective sense was that the film was less fragile and bubbles easier to close.

It wasn't a blind test though -- so it is possible that there was some confirmation bias. I will be curious to try a blind test and also to have some folks do A/B comparisons.

This was a much more satisfactory session than my other RAD sessions. I look forward to exploring it some more.

Advertisement