CLPEX Chat Board

Hi,

Any suggestions on processing of copper piping? The pipes were recovered as stolen and are on the older side. They are relatively clean.
My thoughts are CA with a dye stain. Has anyone tried this?

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

When in doubt . . . experiment.

I presume you have a relatively large amount of this pipe. It occurs to me that gun bluing might be a good technique. Straight visual exam under good light would definitely be a first exam, as sweat or oils might have discolored the old tarnish on the pipe. Then try taking several foot-long sections of the pipe (go ahead and cut it with a hacksaw) and planting test prints on the test sections. Try CA/R6G on one section, gun bluing on another section, maybe a sensitive powder on another, and see what works the best. Then process the bulk of the pipe with the method that works best. True, you will have sacrificed a small portion of the evidence. But you will have ensured the best method was used on the bulk of the evidence. I think the trade-off is justifiable and easily explainable in court if need be.

I have recently processed copper with cyanoacrylate fuming followed by basic yellow 40 dye stain and it worked beautifully.

I have processed a few copper pipe cases. I used visual, IL, CA, R6G, Ardrox, black powder techniques. I was able to develop suitable latent prints using the R6G and ardrox dye stains. Some of the latents that were developed using rhodamine were improved with the ardrox application.

Thanks for the responses.