Mildronate
Hazard to Others
Posts: 428
Registered: 12-9-2009
Member Is Offline
Mood: Ruido sintetico
|
|
10 liter flask frozen joint
Yesterday i get 10 liter round botomm flash, but it has frozen joint  with rotavap
adaptor.
|
|
|
devongrrl
Hazard to Self
Posts: 91
Registered: 28-7-2009
Member Is Offline
Mood: Nucleophilic
|
|
How about gently warming the joint area and trying to rotate the two halves of the joint ?
|
|
|
peach
Bon Vivant
Posts: 1428
Registered: 14-11-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
I'd go with devongrrl's suggestion first, with a fan heater, hairdryer, hot air gun or some warm water out the kettle.
Failing that, there's the gently tap it option. I put a tea towel down on the edge of a surface to avoid the taps being too sharp,
and it really does have to be gentle. Vibration can also help free things. I've used an electric toothbrush to open seized screws on boiler parts, and
use one to get phase boundaries back in sep funnels or settle fine precipitates quicker; the effect can be dramatic. The same idea is used by
investment casting jewelers and guys pouring huge amounts of concrete, to knock the air out and encourage settlement. A high power jelly sex toy would
be even better for transmission of the vibrations and reducing the glass damage potential, among other things.
Next option, soak in warm water, the glass. It may take days or weeks for the joint to entirely free in warm water, if it's ever going to come out.
Unfortunately, unless the grease is skewing things, that looks remarkably similar to a taper I finally had to smash (after three weeks plus of trying
everything I could think of); the ground surfaces have gone from opaque to transparent, meaning something is likely trapped in there (and solidified)
or the tapers have fused.
If water fails (give a good while to have a go), try squirting some solvents into the joint and covering it to prevent evaporation. This may also take
days or weeks, and multiple squirts... hu hu huh hu
You would seriously benefit from having some rough idea what was run through it last when choosing methods to open it again, even if they can only
tell you generally what they were doing.
Essentially, the prime ingredient for free'ing these is a lot of patience. Purposefully set it aside and don't play with it too
often...  or you'll go overboard and it'll be in the wrong kind of bits in not a
lot of time.
edit: 10l ffs? You sure that's going to be big enough?  Another option is,
leave it jammed and use the one already in there (but I'm guessing you want that ground taper back). Also, before you give up and get the screwdriver
out, if the joint is very well jammed, you won't be able to 'chisel' the remaining bits of offending taper off after smashing the smaller part, making
it the very last resort (the flask will probably be wrecked in the process).
[Edited on 21-8-2010 by peach]
|
|
|
Mildronate
Hazard to Others
Posts: 428
Registered: 12-9-2009
Member Is Offline
Mood: Ruido sintetico
|
|
I open it few minutes ago  i used wood stick like writen in this homepage http://www.ecu.edu/glassblowing/frozenglass.htm this flash is realy nice i probably use it for destilations.
|
|
|
peach
Bon Vivant
Posts: 1428
Registered: 14-11-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Congradulations!
That was a lot easier than it could have been.
Enjoy you're freshly liberated, gigantic, flask.
John
|
|
|
Mildronate
Hazard to Others
Posts: 428
Registered: 12-9-2009
Member Is Offline
Mood: Ruido sintetico
|
|
anybody else using large scale glasware?
[Edited on 21-8-2010 by Mildronate]
|
|
|
aonomus
Hazard to Others
Posts: 361
Registered: 18-10-2009
Location: Toronto, Canada
Member Is Offline
Mood: Refluxing
|
|
I occasionally use 3-5L flasks at work, but usually when a joint freezes, I grab a rubber coated plastic stick, and tap the joint while rotating,
never broken the glass by this method, always freed the joint. Its like the wood-stick option.
|
|
|
BromicAcid
International Hazard
Posts: 3253
Registered: 13-7-2003
Location: Wisconsin
Member Is Offline
Mood: Rock n' Roll
|
|
I regularly use 22, 50, and 72L glassware. Usually if I have a frozen joint it hasn't sat for any real length of time. I put on cut resistant
gloves, squirt a little acetone on the joint to get a grip, and give it my all, 9/10 times the joint comes out, the last time it breaks.
|
|
|
Mildronate
Hazard to Others
Posts: 428
Registered: 12-9-2009
Member Is Offline
Mood: Ruido sintetico
|
|
72L  in home or in work?
|
|
|
peach
Bon Vivant
Posts: 1428
Registered: 14-11-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
That's got to be work. If not, he'd be selling us the reagents.
What kind of 70+ litre flask are you working with? Reaction vessels?
|
|
|
rrkss
Hazard to Others
Posts: 193
Registered: 18-12-2009
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Damn, the largest flask I've worked with in my home lab is 1 Liter and that is for bulk solvent distillations. Normally I don't need to go above a
250 mL for my reactions.
|
|
|
BromicAcid
International Hazard
Posts: 3253
Registered: 13-7-2003
Location: Wisconsin
Member Is Offline
Mood: Rock n' Roll
|
|
Yeah, that's at work. My largest flask when I was doing chemistry at home was 3 L I believe. I work in a 'small scale' lab and the largest thing we
have is a 100 L precipitation vessel. 72L glassware is usually for reactions then we strip down and transfer to smaller glassware for final
distillations. The advantage of large glassware is of course larger joints, with 72L glassware you can easily work with 45/50 joints which allows you
to strip off your solvent lightning quick. Less than 2 hours to pull over 40 liters of solvent on a good day. It's amazing to have the variacs of
three zones maxed out and have a pot temperature of <0°C
|
|
|
![[*]](images/xpblue/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
