Sciencemadness Discussion Board

The oddest looking piece of glass I've seen

peach - 8-9-2010 at 01:30

Erm............? :o

peach - 8-9-2010 at 01:39

And I found some scientific for sale... science is heavy stuff...



[Edited on 8-9-2010 by peach]

watson.fawkes - 8-9-2010 at 03:53

Whatever it came from, that lot of glass is certainly not assembled as it was used and may well be incomplete. The piece labeled A is almost certainly upside down, as it's got that classic shape of a cold trap. The end of the cold trap is pointed and there's a vacuum port on it, so my guess it was used for reflux under vacuum and then, with vacuum and cold removed, for product collection, condensing at ambient temperature.

Parts E and F look like a reagent addition kit with take-off for a vapor product, going into one of the Kjeldahl traps (anti-splash). I don't think it originally fitted into part D, since it's got a female joint on the bottom rather than a male one. Well, I'd change my mind if the reagent condensed in part E immediately evaporated again. But I'd guess that a reaction flask is missing, and that's what it went into.

The piece that really puzzles me is part C, with some protuberance coming out of the end of the larger male taper joint.

peach - 8-9-2010 at 05:57

Quote: Originally posted by watson.fawkes  
Whatever it came from, that lot of glass is certainly not assembled as it was used


:D
Quote:
The piece labeled A is almost certainly upside down, as it's got that classic shape of a cold trap. The end of the cold trap is pointed and there's a vacuum port on it, so my guess it was used for reflux under vacuum and then, with vacuum and cold removed, for product collection, condensing at ambient temperature.


100% agreed

A & the B's may be a custom, multiway, cold fingering receiver; which also looks (given the male tapered flasks) designed to get as much shit from the tapers into the flasks as possible. Unless the material is going from them, to the finger and down the centre. Which I think it is. Otherwise, the blower is too inept to use the tapers the right way round and add some drip tips. And the dry ice / cryogen would tend to pour out if it was tipped at an angle. Lets give them some credit and say it's flasks -> finger -> down. Why three of them them? Why not three addition funnels? Why, why, why? The more I look at it, the more questions I have. I can only imagine it's for adding something volatile, three different things and perhaps by boiling them away from sodium, in situ.

C will be a bump / splash head. The bumps on the end of the taper are all over my QuickFit, they're for the drips. It certainly looks custom, as picture three shows there's warping all over the glass surface.

D, I don't think that's just a splash head, but it looks like a failed mating attempt by one with a solvent still head.

E is some micro distillation unit. [Double take; John just spotted the stems on the jacket] CHRIST! I think I'm going to be sick.

L is an extension piece to tubing

K, still head

I, ground taper tap

J and G look like more splash heads

K, just a threaded tap

What I particularly enjoy is F, the monkey balls with a tap and droopy stem. I'm wondering how those might work, but I have a suspicion that too may be a multiway collector of some description, with the tap directing the flow. Or, as you suggest, for adding reagent.

What confuses me about F is that those balls don't turn in relation to the stem, so how would you select between reagents being added? Which is what makes me think it's for collection.

Assuming it's not some kind of art project and that the glassblower wasn't drunk or stoned, some of the bits look designed for quite a specific purpose.

More importantly, note that there is not a single clip on that entire, towering monstrosity, the full 3ft of it's dangling bits is hanging there, waiting....

This is obviously what an scientific looks like in the publics mind. That's NOT Lego!


^^^^^^^^^^^^ That's Lego ^^^^^^^^^^^^

[Edited on 8-9-2010 by peach]

psychokinetic - 8-9-2010 at 12:47

ZOMG I've been looking for some good quality SCIENTIFIC for years!

Also, whoever put that distillation apparatus on eBoo looks like they doth shit with us.

peach - 8-9-2010 at 13:21

I'm guessing whoever put that together started with the cold trap, realized the flasks wouldn't stay in place and, lacking any clips, turned it upside down. Then proceeded to take the piss by stacking it into something that looked about right for a scientific, as the kitty kinetic suggests. Note that the trap now looks like the bottom of a wine bottle. Coincidence?



[Edited on 8-9-2010 by peach]

psychokinetic - 8-9-2010 at 16:54

I'm surprised it didn't fall over before taking the snap.