On May 6, 2009, at 8:11 AM, Gene Heskett wrote: > On Wednesday 06 May 2009, Erik Christiansen wrote: >> On Tue, May 05, 2009 at 09:38:18AM -0400, Gene Heskett wrote: >>> That of course is a simplified description, don't try this unless >>> you are >>> sure of what you are doing as those are the 2 most violent acids >>> we have. >>> You have been warned... >> >> Wikipedia knows as little about oakite as I do, so I'm wondering what >> kind of degreaser that is. The "CP" also has me foxed. I wouldn't >> expect >> that it means anhydrous acid, just a high concentration. > > Oakite is (was?) a brand name, no connection that I recall, to the tar > impregnated hemp rope (or was that oakum? CRS strikes again) used > for packing > in the joints of iron sewer pipes of old, a line of industrial > grade soaps > that are often used for degreasing such things as used engine > blocks before > re-machining bigger bores etc. Probably largely sodium hydroxide. > Lye soap > in other words, but probably without the lard my grandmother used > to make her > soap back in the 30-40's.
Even the MSDS doesn't admit much. I would nominate sodium hydroxide, sodium carbonate and tri-sodium phosphate as candidates. CP ... close but no cigar. CP = chemically pure which is kinda a catchall. In order of increasing purity: technical, CP and AR; i.e. commercial grade for manufacturing, chemically pure ... pure enough for most uses and AR for analytical reagent grade which is pure enough to not interfere with its intended use for analytical determinations. This often means low in trace minerals. The navy used fuming nitric in a frangible vial packaged with metallic sodium as an ignitor for molotov cocktails. Upon impact the acid vial broke and the ensuing acid-metal reaction was guaranteed to ignite the fuel. :-) > > And CP, meaning Certified Pure, the highest specific gravity > available, in the > case of the Nitric, that is about .15 short of 'fuming' Nitric, and > is what > fuming nitric would be once it has quit fuming because it has taken > on the > moisture in the air to dilute it a wee bit. This stuff was back > then, sold by > your local druggist, but you had to sign a registry of some sort to > buy the > nitric IIRC. Either was available in pint containers with glass > stoppers. > Either acid can be quite violent, and when mixing the two, if the > add one to > the other isn't correct one can have a quite violently boiling > explosion. And > once mixed, then it is 'saturated' with iron, the iron must > initially be added > one blued tack at a time due to the violence of the reaction, which > generates > clouds of yellow smoke. I made the mistake of doing it inside and > using a fan > to blow the smoke out the still screened window, and wound up with > a fan sized > hole in the window screen. Rented house at the time so I had to > replace it > before the landlord saw it. Blued tacks are specified because they > haven't > been coated with a rust preventative which would then contaminate > the final > solution. > >> Well, I almost became a chemist, rather than going into electronics. >> (But that would have been organic chemistry, which doesn't have to be >> tame either. Just _slowly_ dripping conc. nitric acid into >> cyclohexanol >> was a pretty violent way to head toward nylon via adipic acid. ) > > I can imagine. Sounds like another process best done under controlled > industrial conditions. Certainly not kitchen table stuff either. > > And either line of endeavor can be lethal, being electrocuted is > not fun as it > triggers a shingles outbreak that will redefine ones personal pain > threshold > level upwards considerably. Been there, survived. Definitely not > fun. > >> Cheers, >> Erik > > -- > Cheers, Gene > "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: > soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." > -Ed Howdershelt (Author) > Youth is a disease from which we all recover. > -- Dorothy Fuldheim > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > The NEW KODAK i700 Series Scanners deliver under ANY circumstances! > Your > production scanning environment may not be a perfect world - but > thanks to > Kodak, there's a perfect scanner to get the job done! With the NEW > KODAK i700 > Series Scanner you'll get full speed at 300 dpi even with all image > processing features enabled. http://p.sf.net/sfu/kodak-com > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The NEW KODAK i700 Series Scanners deliver under ANY circumstances! Your production scanning environment may not be a perfect world - but thanks to Kodak, there's a perfect scanner to get the job done! With the NEW KODAK i700 Series Scanner you'll get full speed at 300 dpi even with all image processing features enabled. http://p.sf.net/sfu/kodak-com _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
