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FrankB · 25th Oct 2018, 10:40 pm

I was cleaning up a storage cabinet about 5 years ago and found my can of "welding flux compound" for forge welding. (Yeah, I have a full blacksmiths shop in storage).
I looked at the ingredients, as the can had drawn moisture, and the cardboard was disintegrating. Potassium Cyanide immediately jumped out at me. Into a sealed container & delivered tot he local Hazo House for safe disposal.
I used Carbon Tet, aka Carbona to find the watermarks on my postage stamps. Unavailable here now.
Carbon Tet was also used in fire extinguishers that had a lead seal that would melt allowing a spring loaded nail to puncture the glass vessel. Back in the 70' s , when I worked for L&I Safety Division, they fined anyone that had those extinguishers because of the danger of Phosgene when it was heated to vapor. The latest and greatest then was Halon for putting out fires. Now that is almost banned, because you can't breathe in it, it displaces oxygen.

The U.S. has really become a "Nanny State" in many areas. No credit is given for common sense. (Darwin's theory of species selection isn't good enough anymore here?).

I use Mercury to process fine gold, but have yet to build a safe retort to remove the gold. It sits in a tightly sealed container covered with water until then. I didn't fall off the turnip truck today. It was yesterday.
Some things are over blown in their level of danger. The knee jerk reaction.

25th Oct 2018, 10:40 pm	#91
FrankB Heptode Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Olympia, Washington, USA. Posts: 664	Re: Don't try this at home... I was cleaning up a storage cabinet about 5 years ago and found my can of "welding flux compound" for forge welding. (Yeah, I have a full blacksmiths shop in storage). I looked at the ingredients, as the can had drawn moisture, and the cardboard was disintegrating. Potassium Cyanide immediately jumped out at me. Into a sealed container & delivered tot he local Hazo House for safe disposal. I used Carbon Tet, aka Carbona to find the watermarks on my postage stamps. Unavailable here now. Carbon Tet was also used in fire extinguishers that had a lead seal that would melt allowing a spring loaded nail to puncture the glass vessel. Back in the 70' s , when I worked for L&I Safety Division, they fined anyone that had those extinguishers because of the danger of Phosgene when it was heated to vapor. The latest and greatest then was Halon for putting out fires. Now that is almost banned, because you can't breathe in it, it displaces oxygen. The U.S. has really become a "Nanny State" in many areas. No credit is given for common sense. (Darwin's theory of species selection isn't good enough anymore here?). I use Mercury to process fine gold, but have yet to build a safe retort to remove the gold. It sits in a tightly sealed container covered with water until then. I didn't fall off the turnip truck today. It was yesterday. Some things are over blown in their level of danger. The knee jerk reaction.