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.
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
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