Homemade and Repurposed Lab Gear

Making filters out of everyday materials

Circular cotton make-up removal pads might be worth a shot.
Actually they would probably match well with a piece of a stovetop espresso maker I have for a buchner funnel.

Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1

Circular cotton make-up removal pads might be worth a shot. Actually they would probably match well with a piece of a stovetop espresso maker I have for a buchner funnel.

I recently used the below idea to use a vacuum flask for which I had no stopper/seal. The red bulb is the bulb for a large glass pipette which had broken.

Quote: Originally posted by The Volatile Chemist

I recently used the below idea to use a vacuum flask for which I had no stopper/seal. The red bulb is the bulb for a large glass pipette which had broken.

Repurposed.

Air bubbler or tiny compressor to help filtration

drying rack

My wife found this baby bottle drying rack at a rummage sale for $1. Now it's a lab glass drying rack (some might say it is MY baby bottle drying rack.

Home made pestle

I needed something to crush large crystals and charcoal and things such as this. So I came up with this:





IDK how thick the rebar is but the measuring cup is 3/4 cup and filled with lead. I added screws & nuts on the inside to lock everything in place. I would guess this all weighs close to 5-6 lbs and works great for breaking up whatever is needed

Homemade magnetic stirrer with a 4 positions speed selector. It's working pretty well, although the stirbar has a bad habit of "not staying where it should" when the solution is difficult to stir (Thick precipitates, cellulose in schweizer reagent).

I had almost everything except the magnets (Very strong neodymium magnets) and the selector. It was quite of a hassle to center them to get the desired effect



I tried to use a potentiometer but they all burned.


[Edited on 17-5-2016 by Firmware21]

re Rogue Rose's pestle

Safety shield

I just finished making a safety shield from a piece of 0.1 inch thick, 18 "x24" poly-carbonate. The blue strips are masking tape so you can tell where the plastic is. I'm already thinking of making another one so I can put 2 side by side, either horizontally or vertically (or even 1 each way, I suppose).

Firmware21

very nice,
but unless you are a lot more careful than me,
liquids will get to the potentiometer.

A small piece of acrylic glued diagonally across the corner where the pot is would help,
I'd consider as large diameter as fits ring around the top to form a shallow well,
or glue flat strips of acrylic into a square well.
It will not look as pretty,
but spilled liquids and electronics is not usually a good combination

I just had a thought, (it happens occasionally)
you could add some baffles to direct the air from the fan around the front top edge,
this would gently encourage nasty fumes (HCl etc.) to move away from you instead of biting your nose.

Another thought ...
a ceramic tile (the type used on walls) placed in the middle,
a stand, clamp & something like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TRAVEL-HEATER-ELEMENT-WATER-COFFEE...
would allow heating with stirring ... very useful.

There isn't a window in my house as clear and clean as this sheet of plastic!

Quote: Originally posted by The Volatile Chemist

Does anyone have a source for a home-made iron-piping style DIY Bunsen burner like what Doug's lab has? I really like the design, but he's never posted here or on YouTube with regards to how it was made.

Doug actually posted about the design of his burner in:

http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=36062

Quote: Originally posted by battoussai114

I have a cheap magnetic stirrer too. Mine uses a 12v power supply from my old home phone, a 12v PC fan and 2 savaged neodymium magnets. I'm currently working on a hotplate. Got a stainless steel plate from a local metal shop, some nichrome wire and a potentiometer. The only problem is that my only available power supply output a max 6W. I'm not sure if I'll bother trying to add temperature control (even though I have some spare MCUs laying around), probably I'll just estimate the temperature based on the voltage drop across different positions of the potentiometer wiper.

Magnetic Stirrer

Quote: Originally posted by Firmware21

I thought about the potentiometer problem, i think I'll just use some kind of plastic container instead of modifying the stirrer. I'm more concerned about me getting fried by the stirrer than just breaking it. I therefore avoid manipulating liquids when it's plugged in and cover the beaker with something. For the heat insulation, a tile seems to be a better alternative to the old corkboard I planned to use. Concerning the heating element, corrosives/redox will mess with it quickly and break it.

Quote: Originally posted by ficolas

You need to use a voltage regulator, or your potentiometers will eventually fry. A 12V (300mA maybe?) DC Power source wont really cause much harm, it may shock you if you touch both ends with wet hands, but nothing really bad should happen (Acording to my knowledge, and a electrical engineer friend I asked because I was scared of using things wired to the wall, even if working with low current and low voltage) I'll be using an waterproof project box (Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Estone-Waterproof-Plastic-Electronic-... ) And cover all the holes I make in the box for the pot, etc as good as I can. Here is the schematic i'll follow, where they also use a voltage regulator so that pots dont fry over time.

I already use a 12 V adapter, it would have fried otherwise. I was just scared about getting shocked

And actually, it's not a potentiometer but a 4 position interuptor. I regulate the speed using a couple of resistors. I tried to use potentiometers, but they burned...

SIMPLE Distillation setup with parts on-hand

All that was available was a 1L Erlynmyer flask and a 12" Liebig condenser. An aquarium pump was aquired to cool the condenser and used an old metal stand (like a music stand) to hold up the apparatus.

So, how to get a distillation unit out of this? Take the outer case of a 35ml syringe (the hard plastic case that the syringe comes in). The wide part of the neck, near the end of the plunger fit PERFECTLY inside the neck of the flask!!!

1/2" OD, 3/8" ID vinyl tubing (food grade) was used to connect the syringe case to the condenser. To ensure it stuck together RTV silicone was added as a "bung/stopper" at the flare of the syringe case to make a seal and keep it from falling down if it could even happen.

A hole was drilled in the needle end (no needle here though) of the syringe case to put the tubing through. A bulb of RTV silicone was applied to the end of the 1/2" tubing (heated with hot air gun to speed sealing outer layer) then pulled up through the syringe case from the inside and then filled the rest with RTV to keep it from moving. Used long screwdriver to ensure tubing was clear of silicone.

On the outside of the syringe case, 3 layers of RTV to stick/glue the tubing to the syringe casing ensuing there is no leaking from the vapors.

After each use of RTV a 1500 watt heat gun was used to seal the outer layer so it wasn't sticky. This takes about 30 seconds. Be careful to continually rotate/move so it doesn't melt the syringe case.

The vinyl tubing terminated inside the condenser with a perfect fit and used double wide electrical tape first wrapped around the tubing and then around the condenser (2 wraps) and then back to the tubing for a number of wraps. This has held for a LONG time with NO leaks of failure.

Normal vinyl tubing was used to cool the condenser - no big thing here. MAKE SURE YOU CHECK THE CONNECTION often as they can slide off, especially when the water gets warmer. small pipe clamps will be very helpful.

a 15" lenght of vinyl tubing finished the run from the end of the condenser. Many benefits to this as it can provide extra cooling and can be moved to different containers when possible.

Total expenditure: $2.62 for the tubing & RTV usage - all else was on hand.

Hypothetically. This is able to take alcohol wash of 5% to about 40-50% after one run and after a second run 92-93% was measured!!!



Pleas no rude comments about the adapter to the erlynmyere flask. I know it looks like one of those "male enhancement" vacuum attachments that is leaking from the end

[Edited on 7-6-2016 by RogueRose]

[Edited on 7-6-2016 by RogueRose]



[Edited on 7-6-2016 by RogueRose]

Well at least you've got a condenser . My first "distillation apparatus" was roughly the same, except there was no condenser or stative to hold the whole thing.

I hope there is good ventilation where you work with it, as it looks like a big fire hazard to me. Honestly, I'd be afraid to work with it in my lab.
I might just be a scaredy cat though...

You might want to get the adapter someday, they make your life easier IMO .

Quote: Originally posted by Firmware21

Well at least you've got a condenser . My first "distillation apparatus" was roughly the same, except there was no condenser or stative to hold the whole thing. I hope there is good ventilation where you work with it, as it looks like a big fire hazard to me. Honestly, I'd be afraid to work with it in my lab. I might just be a scaredy cat though... You might want to get the adapter someday, they make your life easier IMO .

Well a lit flame next to the erlynmyer junction and at the end of the condenser hose posed no fire risk. Keeping the condenser at 55F or so and running slow, so very little vapor this way.


What I coulnd't get over was the fact that I could get almost 95% with this cheap setup while my $500 essential oil still can't get past about 50% This is what makes me so mad when people say that they have the best b/c it is most expensive.

Kind of like a $2,000 space pen (writes in zero G) vs a pencil, lol

[Edited on 7-6-2016 by RogueRose]

I built this little DIY centrifuge out of an empty spool, some microfuge tubes, nuts and bolts, hot glue, and a rubber band. It's powered by an electric drill - my cordless didn't quite have the muscle to do what I wanted in a timely manner, but my neighbor lent me a higher power drill, which worked

Making filters from PVC pipe & removable lids on pipes

I needed a way to change the material in my filters made of PVC pipe and the PVC screw-on end pieces were really expensive (comparatively for what I needed), were a little awkward in size and needed Teflon or plumbers tape to ensure seal each time it was opened.

What I did was find some plastic jars and gallon juice containers that had the size mouths (large/wide mouths) that would allow the pipe to fit inside. I then cut the plastic containers threaded neck off and then used an epoxy/resin to glue it to the PVC. I then put whatever attachment/barb onto the container lid & glue/epoxy/JB weld it to the lid. Now I have a water tight removable lid and it can be made if your local hardware store doesn't have the size PVC threaded cap you need (at my store, one 3" cap costs almost as much as 10' of SCH40 pipe!)


As for filters, I like using square cotton swabs over-layed out one on top of the next and so on. Then roll it up in a tight bundle (very tight if you want high filtration) and squish it into the PVC pipe. If you try this you MUST "charge" the cotton with water (or some liquid) before attaching to the holding vessel with the solution to be filtered. It may not be possible to have the liquid penetrate the cotton if you pack it tight enough, but if you soak the cotton (once in the PVC) on both sides of the filter it will help IMMENSELY!

Also, I have needed to attach small diameter tubing to garden hose and it was difficult to find anything that would allow this. This can be great for running a condenser.

Also, if you need an inexpensive ball valve for vinyl tubing I found using one of the garden hose shut-off valves works great all you need to do is get the hose ball valve (the yellow ones below) and either buy the garden hose cap or a 3/4" pvc pipe cap and cut it to fir the valve - then attach the proper hose barb.


*Note all the threaded "necks" are glued with an epoxy and have one on both sides of the pipe
**the picture of the grey PVC filter, it is open-ended and that is fine if you just hang it over the receiving container. If you do this the cotton needs to packed tightly enough to not allow the pressure to push it out (I hang the holding tank 5-12' above receiving vessel. Placing a drywall screw at the bottom - near outlet - works well to keep them all in there.

Quote: Originally posted by RogueRose

All that was available was a 1L Erlynmyer flask and a 12" Liebig condenser. An aquarium pump was aquired to cool the condenser and used an old metal stand (like a music stand) to hold up the apparatus. So, how to get a distillation unit out of this? Take the outer case of a 35ml syringe (the hard plastic case that the syringe comes in). The wide part of the neck, near the end of the plunger fit PERFECTLY inside the neck of the flask!!! 1/2" OD, 3/8" ID vinyl tubing (food grade) was used to connect the syringe case to the condenser. To ensure it stuck together RTV silicone was added as a "bung/stopper" at the flare of the syringe case to make a seal and keep it from falling down if it could even happen. A hole was drilled in the needle end (no needle here though) of the syringe case to put the tubing through. A bulb of RTV silicone was applied to the end of the 1/2" tubing (heated with hot air gun to speed sealing outer layer) then pulled up through the syringe case from the inside and then filled the rest with RTV to keep it from moving. Used long screwdriver to ensure tubing was clear of silicone. On the outside of the syringe case, 3 layers of RTV to stick/glue the tubing to the syringe casing ensuing there is no leaking from the vapors. After each use of RTV a 1500 watt heat gun was used to seal the outer layer so it wasn't sticky. This takes about 30 seconds. Be careful to continually rotate/move so it doesn't melt the syringe case. The vinyl tubing terminated inside the condenser with a perfect fit and used double wide electrical tape first wrapped around the tubing and then around the condenser (2 wraps) and then back to the tubing for a number of wraps. This has held for a LONG time with NO leaks of failure. Normal vinyl tubing was used to cool the condenser - no big thing here. MAKE SURE YOU CHECK THE CONNECTION often as they can slide off, especially when the water gets warmer. small pipe clamps will be very helpful. a 15" lenght of vinyl tubing finished the run from the end of the condenser. Many benefits to this as it can provide extra cooling and can be moved to different containers when possible. Total expenditure: $2.62 for the tubing & RTV usage - all else was on hand. Hypothetically. This is able to take alcohol wash of 5% to about 40-50% after one run and after a second run 92-93% was measured!!! Pleas no rude comments about the adapter to the erlynmyere flask. I know it looks like one of those "male enhancement" vacuum attachments that is leaking from the end [Edited on 7-6-2016 by RogueRose] [Edited on 7-6-2016 by RogueRose] [Edited on 7-6-2016 by RogueRose]

My woodworking skills fall somewhere below "carpenter's apprentice", but I managed to finish and mount the shelves shown in the attached pictures. The short shelf on the left is 42 inches wide, and the one on the right is 48 inches wide. The shelves and ends are made from "1x4" pine.

Now to stock them with chemicals!

Filter funnel from a 2L bottle

I used to use the spout of a cut off 2L bottle for holding filter paper (coffee filters) but found that the surface contact of the paper on the plastic restricted the flow significantly basically only allowing the small bottom opening as the sole area which liquid could flow out of.

So, I made some cuts to open up the sides and was going to cut the "vents" off when I realized that they could be used to hold the filter over the receiving vessel.

Isn't serendipity wonderful!

I forgot to add, that's clever, but I'm not sure the contact of filter paper with the "funnel" slows things down, at least for solvents that "wet" the "funnel". I need to try this.


[Edited on 8-17-2016 by CharlieA]

Fractional distillation under (slowly fluctuating) vacuum with 2 pieces of glass. Homemade aspirator station next on the list.

Works a treat though...................





Comments and criticisms welcome.

If anyone wants a list of parts l will gladly post it.................

/CJ

[Edited on 17-1-2017 by Corrosive Joeseph]

All I did was take a bit of 24 glass, it was a thermometer adapter I got far a couple of dollars but I took a file around the join and snapped it off. Next I put a Büchner funnel down the hole full of clear epoxy and there. No more need for a rubber gooch. Just a little vacuum grease and it works great. Kind of re- purposed I guess.

Might have gotten away with silicone caulking to seal the two together. Allow expansion/contraction and be chemically resistant while still being replacable. Lexell, it comes with no bubbles in the mix. But good lord hope you dont have to pull the sword from the stone as it were. Stuff has a good bite as far as adhesive.

https://www.google.com/search?q=lexell+caulk&num=100&...
-------
I cut the glass envelope off of a HPS grow light, to epoxy into PVC threaded fitting. It worked great untill the epoxy fully set, cracking the glass. A real bummer as I had not counted on that much shrinkage. It was in an effort to make a clear container for scrubbing gasses, moisture or just plain see what ever you had going on inside.

Personally I wanted to scrub NO₂ into sillica jell beads, from a low % feed off electric discharge. And perhaps with a metal collar, have the electric discharge in a similar fixed globe in upright configuration instead of hanging low.



Fun will be had eventually, think I will follow my own advice and set it wil the tube of Lexell already purchased. I had a hard time trying to flame polish the glass edge, and there was some epoxy that curled over that chipped edge. Most likely cause of failure.

[Edited on 18-1-2017 by violet sin]

This is one of my right angle clamps.

Having very little money after buying all my ground glass labware, I decided to build my own lab stands. I got two metal plates from an old railroad (just laying on the ground) and used some extra threaded rod that was leftover from something. Holes were drilled and tapped in the middle of the plate and a nut was added. Total cost: $0 and minimal work

they look sturdy and stable, nice (if not pretty

(I almost lost a 2l flask today using the typical eBay retort stands with light bases.)

The bases are around 6 Kg so they are very sturdy and not prone to falling over. How about putting some weights on your stands for more stability?



Not winning any art competitions

Edit: added "s" to stand

[Edited on 1/28/2017 by Geocachmaster]

No lab oven, but I do have a cheap Walmart hotplate and a stainless steel pot.

It can even tell the temperature!



I really need to buy a toaster oven

Heh I recently repurpose my grandmother's (she is dead now) spice rack, threw out the old spices, all save for the turmeric, for the potential uses of curcumin when I get back to working on ergot, some szechuan pepper extract (EtOAc/hydroalcoholic in concentrated iPA) and the very fresh that I use often such as cubeb, pink peppercorns, which I myself bought, my homemade fly agaric/peppery boletus-based steak spice in ready-ground form, a small amount at a time so it keeps better, and dried peppery bolete caps divested of the pores and dried in slices and chunks,plus a few other more unusual spices that are either not cheap, not readily bought, or quite simply (such as Amanita muscaria, and peppery boletus, Chalciporus piperatus) are not to be purchased in any food market, although fly agaric can be bought from head shops, the quality is unreliable, and I prefer to know that it has been cured properly to detoxify it)

The rest of the glass jars, not boro, they have rubberized seals, the material type I don't know, so theres a fair few things I don't put in them. But they do just fine for projects in partial-gestation, much of the time, or after having been given birth and blinking at the sudden light and squawling for the first time as it draws its first breath Repurpose the amber glass bottles with chemically resistant plastic (to solvolysis especially) of some kind that my chlormethiazole script comes in

Geocachmaster

I have a similar hotplate,
the temperature controller needed multiple re-adjustments so I used one of the cheap controllers http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161843931556?_trksid=p2060353.m274...
In use with a2l flask covered in Al foil

Top view after modification

The controller in the bottom part of an old plastic box

Modified hotplate internals


The hotplate now has better control all the way to maximum, which is higher than before..

[Edited on 7-2-2017 by Sulaiman]

Sulaiman

That's a super good idea! I actually just bought a 2000w (I think) ac voltage control for use with my heating mantle () and other projects. I think I'll put it to good use now!

The heating control on that hotplate is definitely crap, either too hot or too cold.

[Edited on 2/7/2017 by Geocachmaster]

the controller in the photo's was ordered at the same time as a 500ml heating mantle element,
the hotplate died more recently,

there is another controller in the post somewhere between China and me
(and a 'spare' heating element, even though construction not started yet

P.S. for good performance a batch fractionating column needs very slowly changing temperatures, boil-up rates etc.
I have considered
. a mini-mercury-manometer to control heating based on column differential pressure
. a rex-c100 pid controller
. a £1.24 incl. p&p triac 'dimmer' ... perfect ! for fixed boil-up rates

[Edited on 7-2-2017 by Sulaiman]

At least as they come, those hotplates have to bee THE worst I've ever had the displeasure of using.

Had one, and ended up tossing it just recently. If its what it looks like (I can't remember the brand, its been around a while and any lettering had long since been eaten off by various corrosives)

But the temperature was thermostatic, and either on or off, cycling in pulses to attempt to regulate the temperature. A real piece of shite and with a tendency to trip the circuit breakers unless very carefully adjusted. Got dumped in the bin the moment another became available again. And the one of those I had was worse than unpredictable. It was the damn devil, and has been responsible for a volcanic unpleasant reaction sudden superheating which resulted in a phosphorus volcano shooting up and out of the condenser, as well as three other times. Once the result was a huge, expensive, if rather pretty, although pretty noxious as well, sodding great gout of subliming iodine vapor, looked as though iodine had been substituted for Cl2 in a damn WWII trench, and the other one ended up starting diethylene glycol smoking and fuming at a roiling boil in a heating bath, which whilst rather, well..not exactly penetrating, and didn't have that sheer carrying or persistency of say, some of the foul-smelling haloalkyl sulfur heterocyclic monstrosities spawned by overheating 1-chloro or 1-bromothiazol-2-ethanes which were just brutal, the diethylene glycol heating bath, which happened to contain salts, CaCl2 and NaCl, due to a former life as a coolant bath with ice and MeOH/EtOH, good god the smell. It was subtle, but odious, a really nasty sickly sweet 'ripe' stench. Not like rot, exactly, but like fruit going rotten without the fruity ester components, and putrid. Stagnant and sickly. Not terribly strong as such, but even faint sensation of that was enough to nearly make one vomit.

The plate eventually grew to be so despised that it went into the trash. The death knell sounded for it the time dipropionyl and dibenzoylmorphine sulfate both almost ended up burnt to a crisp during a sudden temperature spike. Luckily most of the esters were able to be saved, but from 70-something 'C to over 250 'C in no time flat. Luckily the reaction involving the esters was being watched like a hawk due to the preciousness and temporary irreplacability of the substrate and the vessels were snatched, hot as they were, off the place before the substrate was deep-fried in acyl halide. Bugger the hands. The yield had to be saved in that case. Not easy to keep hold of and it had a good go at shrink-wrapping a pair of hands in shrunken gloves. A good deal of swearing followed to say the least, although at least, given the specific activity of the compounds produced, at least the actual pain from grabbing the bloody well hot flask necks stood little chance of standing up to 3,6-dipropionylmorphine. Little yield left afterwards, due to its being needed to sooth the hands that rescued it, but some is better than none. dipropionyl and dibenzoylmorphine turning to carbon..now that would be a sight to make any chemist weep. After that, it went to another hot place. This one with lots of fire and brimstone, from whence it came and where it deserves to be.

These hotplates are definitely horrible for temperature control with the included thermostat. I find it useful for dehydrating stuff that can't decompose/burn. For example if I'm out of anhydrous magnesium sulfate and don't have a lot of time I just throw a bit in a beaker and turn it on full. Also the heating surface is covered with some kind of paint which can stick to glass; it's awful to clean off. I bought a ceramic top hotplate stirrer when I could, but it blew half of this years chem budget.





Much better

My current mag stirplate that needed a repair (he's no electrician generally, not with his math) is now thankfully repaired, again with a modification like that, converting the snap-switch (preset levels, without intermediacy, at first) to a dimmer. Still getting used to the hack of the controls. But MUCH better.

The other one had to go though. Was going to rip the resistance wire out of it, but one night, found it had just been thrown out. Fucker was too dangerous to plug back in and once his old man repaired the other one and did that little hack on the controllers, it went before he had chance. Not that he misses it, and not like a bit of nichrome resistance wire is going to break the bank of ever needing to buy any.

First time he knew of that sudden massive overheating. Elemental phosphorus was one of the reagents. doing an RP-I2 reduction of the substrates he was working on at the time, and lets just say, the cleanup wasn't much fun. PI3, I2, burning phosphorus that thankfully, didn't QUITE hit the ceiling. Not far off though, using a long, thin necked flask at the time, a side-arm distillation flask another time was even less pretty (one with an inbuilt long glass side-arm coming off the neck about an inch or two down from the top of the neck. If the top end had been sealed, that would have been...well glad not to be standing too close due to the resulting sideways direction of the jet of reactants



[Edited on 8-2-2017 by tsathoggua1]

I had been doing camera work, including a bunch of chemistry videography & photography, using a clamp, stand, and (ugh) selfie stick to hold my camera as a makeshift tripod. It was ok, but still pretty wobbly and inconvenient. I picked up a tripod not too long ago at the local Really Free Market, and decided to retrofit the selfie stick to the tripod so that it could hold my camera phone. Here it is, after sanding down rough edges and epoxying an appropriately-threaded nut onto the phone holder:

My first attempts as making glass pipettes. The top two are made from glass droppers (right) and the bottom two are made from glass tube. The bottom ones are blackened because I pressed the hot glass on a piece of wood to flare the edges, got a nice deposit of soot. Would metal cause cracking?

I heated the last 1.5cm of the tube while rotating until the hole closed and the glass softened enough for it to droop when rotation stopped. Then using a pair of tweezers I grabbed the end and carefully pulled it out. The faster pulled the thinner the tip will be.







My favorite one

Homemade magnetic stirrer 9v bat and computer fan

Homemade magnetic stirrer 9v bat and computer fan

DIY lab equipment

I tried to make a ball mill from a peanut butter jar, the bearings out of a dishwasher, and a severely under powered motor. It lasted for a good 20 seconds.



Next I made an HHO generator from several plastic containers hot glued together. I used nails as the electrodes and baking soda for the electrolyte so it did not last long either.



When I first got into element collecting I made a box so I could safely electrolyze NaOH. I did not know that NaOH was deliquescent at the time so when I was done I just put it at the back of my workbench and left it for a few days. When I came back it was a fizzing swollen caustic mess. Good times.



Best of all though is my homemade liebig condenser. I cut the ends off of disposable test tubes with a diamond cutoff wheel and butt jointed them together with my blowtorch. I made a cooling jacket out of PVC and an adapter for my Erlenmeyer from a rubber stopper. It worked, but it leaked horribly, it was difficult to position without breaking the joints between the tubes, and never got above a 10% yield with it. Some things are worth paying for.


[Edited on 26-9-2017 by Plunkett]

Quote: Originally posted by Plunkett

I tried to make a ball mill from a peanut butter jar, the bearings out of a dishwasher, and a severely under powered motor. It lasted for a good 20 seconds.

I got some borosilicate drinking straws as a gift and figure they could be repurposed for something. And the little cleaning brushes reminiscent of test tube brushes ...





[Edited on 5-1-2018 by Morgan]

I finally tried out what I thought might be a really good airator which is simply part of a borosillcate glass tube a friend was throwing away, he has tons of these as waste from normal working with glass tube. It has a 1/4" OD glass tube barb at the top and fits perfectly inside any 1/4" tubing - these can be made to any side basically (smaller than the tube that is).

The tube is filled with some cotton swabs rolled up and pushed into the bottom.

I tried it against an aquarium air stone and the bubbles were about 1/40th the size of the air stone (more like a mist of bubbles, instead of actual bubbles, the water gets cloudy with air towards the top of the water!) and gives a ton more surface area for the gas to absorb into the water. I thought this would be good for trying to absorb NH3 into water. Will the bubbles being so fine be an issue?

If anyone is interested I could probably get a bunch of these (if anyone is interested) and even some larger ones from 3/4" to 3" ID and thick walled.



[Edited on 1-22-2018 by RogueRose]

Quote: Originally posted by Geocachmaster

My first attempts as making glass pipettes. The top two are made from glass droppers (right) and the bottom two are made from glass tube. The bottom ones are blackened because I pressed the hot glass on a piece of wood to flare the edges, got a nice deposit of soot. Would metal cause cracking?

Homemade Distillation Setup

It's nothing too fancy, but I figured I would share my homemade (janky) distillation setup from awhile back. It's certainly not an aesthetic piece, but it successfully distilled over 50mL of concentrated nitric acid on its first use. It's surprising what one can do with a wine bottle, glass tubing, and a propane torch.

I was looking at some various small diameter tubing on eBay and it's kind of expensive for just a simple aluminum tube but found some thrift store knitting needles in various sizes for very little - maybe of use for some projects.



[Edited on 26-1-2018 by Morgan]

Stainless Steel trash cans for boiling pots

I've found that some places sell some pretty nice stainless steel trash cans, often for bathroom use. I found one that is about 1.75 gallons and is probably 304 SS and I picked it up at a flea market surplus store for $3.50. It's round and about 9" diameter on the bottom and 12" at the top and is about 15" tall.

I've used this for a number of things, holding liquids of various types that don't eat SS. I decided to try it on my stove and it works SO much better than most of my pots b/c it is so tall, which makes boiling solutions a very easy task as there is no splatter surrounding the burner. It was great for boiling down various solutions where a larger pot would have had splatter around the edges and I can put all the liquid in at once (most of the time).

I've seen about 20 different trash cans that would work for this and I've seem them very often at flea markets, farmers markets, thrift stores, as well as stores like Big Lots, Ollies, Marshals, TJ Maxx, etc.

Using these also allows you to keep any cookware seperate from the chemistry fun so the significant other doesn't get upset in case you get pickeling on the metal (yeah, that is fun to explain - "But it wasn't supposed to do that, this pot isn't made of what it says it is made of!! Don't blame me, blame they lying cookware manufacturer!!)





[Edited on 2-24-2018 by RogueRose]

Boiling flask from old metal halide bulbs - 1.5L per bulb and thicker than RBF'S!

SO I had some old 400w sodium or metal halide bulbs and I cut them open with a diamond wheel on the dremel. They cut very nicely on the far end (where it screws in) and is just under 2" diameter making it perfect for a 2" bung/plug.

These might be great boiling flasks/distillation flasks where there may be remains in the bottom that are difficult to impossible to break up. These are borosillicate glass and they are thicker than both beakers and round bottom flasks that I have checked (broken) by about 20-40%. The setup is self explanitory and I'm going to test it down the road and see what the results are. I plan to use glass tubing coming out of the bung leading to a condenser. IDK if there is anything I need to think of before this, but it seems a plausible idea.

The 400w bulbs (Phillips brand & most brands are same size) are 1,4L to 1.5L which is a very nice size and smaller 250w, 175w, 120w, 100w, etc are all freely available from electricians and gives sizes from 220ml up to the 1.5L.

I used a simple hose clamp around the neck with some tape to give it something to hold onto.

Testing out my heating mantle today. Last year I bought a replacement mantle for a 500 ml heater off eBay for 10$ I placed this into an old paint can for the base and packed the surrounding space with Kaowool. It was powered with a PID/SSR combo which was also from EBay for under 25$ last year. The leads are some old sections of oven wiring harness. I understand the 400c PID devices are cheaper still which would suit this application just fine. I’m using it to distill Glacial Acetic Acid and it works very well. So that’s a home made heating mantle for under 50$. I did run it at max power for a short while and it can get to about 330c. I wouldn’t run it like that most of the time due to the possibility of the nichrome burning out but these mantles are cheap enough so that’s no problem if it did. I bought 3 of them.

MAybe you can help with this as I've searched for years. What is the material between the ceramic blanket and the glass flask. It looks like a braided material, kind of like a rope wrapped around in circles (starting in center bottom and wrapping around and out up to the top where we see it).

I've also seen heating mantles that use I have seen mantles that use "alkali-free glass fiber insulation material, the resistance of nickel-chromium wire insulation in the insulation layer, woven into a semi-heat within the heater."

So to me it seems that it might be a quartz based fiber (much like fiberoptic which is mostly SiO2 and VERY high melting point compared to even borosillicate glass).

Here is a good article that describes the heating mantle repairs, modifications and builds, but the list of parts (heat resistant fabric??) seem to be limited
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=15844

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The stem of my polypropylene buchner funnel fits perfectly into this adapter:

I made a spirit lamp out of a jar. I pierced a hole in its lid with a knife. Through the hole I put a roll made out of sterile compresses. The exposed part of the roll was covered in aluminium foil so that only its tip is exposed to the air. The foil was glued to the lid using a hot glue gun.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I use a stainless steel cup as a snuffer. I found one which happens to fit tightly over the jar.




[Edited on 14-4-2018 by CobaltChloride]

Vacuum pump and vacuum filter

Here Is my gem, vacuum pump made from 12V compressor.

It has a nice high power motor


It takes air from every hole in the motor and parts, so they are sealed with super glue.


Made a hole in the part where piston is and added a nozzle for hose.

Vacuum pump and vacuum filter

Active cooling and some heat sinks (it was getting hot quite fast)


Power supply from a transformer and bridge rectifier. it eats 6-7A, and about 12, when maximum vacuum is reached. Rectifier is sandwiched between aluminum to dissipate heat.


And the filter - just a jar with a funel.



I was able to boil water in 54 Celsius. If I am not wrong its about 120 torr?

(1), (2),
(3),

1- Small horizontal/vertical combo Lab clamp.
2- Clamp detail.
3- steel block ring stand, pretty disappointing.

The lab clamp was more of a necessity and I think it came out nicely. I was planning on going a different route with the build but, available materials and store prices precipitated this form. Apparently wing-nuts are spendy...over 1.30$ each at ACE. They did have some affordable threaded grommets you knock in a hole and all kinds of cheap bolts.. ~$1.70 for both pairs on the free scrap wood clamp is affordable... If you already know how to build it step wise, quick... If your learning as you go, it's a BIT TIME CONSUMING.

The pinch plates slide to allow capture without disassembling. I admit wingnuts would be faster or more convenient at least. Probably just spot weld a handle on there. I would definitely change a few things, maybe use the tablesaw to do the cuts. As was this was finished like 4:30 am in the basement so all hand tools except drill press.

The cheap Chinese ones off eBay looked terrible, are narrow opening and would take a while to get here. Would love aluminum version, but who has time to ground up build a foundry for that for no reason. I was tempted.

The lab stand was a slab of scrap steel from the local welding shop, and a 3/8" rod from the store that was for something else but was super convenient. My harbor freight tap and die set did NOT match up well. So after all the effort of building it, the shaft won't stay in until about 10-12 wraps of PTFE tape to attempt to hold it still. But it falls out after moving some more. I will attempt to tap the other side of the block.

Brake fluid as paint stripper, not too shabby.
(4), (5),

4- overnight after one brushed on coat
5- second application after a quick wire brushing

It isn't super fantastic, but I didn't have to go buy anything. No fumes and soap/water cleanup, not bad. I got a scroll saw from a family member who didn't have time to fix it, missing cord and one side of blade holder is shot. This would have been pretty friggn useful on the clamp project, but I digress. Fresh enamel coating to come and then pressed into service.

Maybe some inspiration for someone - vs

I got tired of using a soup can filled with sand as a test tube holder so I made a proper one from a piece of firewood I had laying around.

Quote: Originally posted by Plunkett

I got tired of using a soup can filled with sand as a test tube holder so I made a proper one from a piece of firewood I had laying around.

Sorry, pictures didn't send

Last minute stopper

(I'd love wimsy asked access if one of you two sees this).

[Edited on 23-10-2018 by Σldritch]

Began with a capacitor clip from scrap soviet era electronics, a broken aluminum restraining clip found in a truck yard, and a metal rod extracted from a broken printer.
Cut the aluminum to a rectangle, drilled and counter-bored, and sawed in two notches. Drilled and tapped the metal rod. Used a screw and wire to firmly assemble.
Free liebig condenser support arm

Clever!

Tea strainer
Also known as 600mL tall-form jacketed beaker.



When I get to playing with dry ice and acetone cold baths, I'll be able to see what I am doing.