Compass dampener liquid refill?

[Bill P]

My favourite Silva Type 7 NL has finally lost its juice after 40 years good service. Needle still points north but spins madly and incessantly like a liberal prime minister. Can anyone recommend a suitable household liquid that i can refill it with please? I dont want to buy anything specifically - wondering if anyone has used water or shellite or sewing machine oil . Any ideas..?

[tastrax]

From this page (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass) it would seem any of these things would be suitable

.....lamp oil, mineral oil, white spirits, purified kerosene, or ethyl alcohol are common

White spirits/turps is pretty common in supermarkets - you may even have some in the shed!

[Orion]

Good on you for making the effort to keep a $10 compass from ending up in the rubbish heap.

I spent a couple of weeks reverse engineering a toaster that had gone wonky with it's microprocessor control. I carefully sketched out a schematic, looked up the what the various chips were, and had even written some of the code for the Atmel processor I was going to use to run the thing. I had it all figured out. Then I ran a little test and connected wire A to wire B when it should have been obvious from my home made schematic that I really shouldn't have done that. Pop! Poof! Smoke. Goodbye. Now I have a new toaster that cost $25 and the old one is adding to the giant pile of industrial debris. Oh well.

I don't really know what fluid is in a cheap hand held compass. It doesn't appear to be very viscous though. The thing I would wonder about is why the fluid is gone in yours. Presumably there is a leak you need to deal with.

[michael_p]

Pop! Poof! Smoke. Goodbye.

The magic smoke is impossible to get back in once it escapes.

[Bill P]

Good on you for making the effort to keep a $10 compass from ending up in the rubbish heap

Thanks Orion i always try to repair things too. Hey --I didnt pay $10 for this compass though. I found it on a beach in 1985.

Thanks tastrax- lamp oil sounds good but i dont have any. i think ill use kero - the blue colour should look cool.

[Orion]

Pop! Poof! Smoke. Goodbye.

The magic smoke is impossible to get back in once it escapes.

I actually could have resurrected it. At least a couple of parts had been damaged and one whole trace had vaporized. But I could have replaced those parts and bypassed the missing circuit board trace. It would have been possible to do. But my heart was no longer in it.

Hey --I didnt pay $10 for this compass though. I found it on a beach in 1985.

Too funny!

[rcaffin]

You will need a very light liquid. I tried using the lightest of oils, but the needle moved afar too slowly. Kero? Maybe. But it might evaporate away.

Cheers
Roger