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acetone ate my graduated cylinder! pics

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jbark

jbark

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I have a plastic graduated cylinder that I originally used for dark room photography, and have since been using to decant my naptha from the bark lye solution.

Today I was mixing up my first batch of changa and used the same cylinder to measure out some acetone. I foolishly took it for granted that a dark room graduated cylinder, made for holding chemicals and proven to be impervious to naptha, should be alright for any solvent. I put 20ml of acetone in the graduated cylinder and poured it out 10 seconds later. I mixed the changa up and set it to evaporate in my basement.

When I came back up, about ten minutes later, the graduated cylinder was no longer transparent - it was white, with stress-like ripples all the way up!!

Now I think I know the unfortunate answer to this question - is my changa ruined? i.e. unsafe? Permeated with melted plastic fumes?

Some chemist somewhere tell me it's not true... do I have to throw out all that changa, the changa that I used 90% of my remaining spice to make? say it isn't so...

hoping against my better judgment,
JBArk
 

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Nothing like a little acetone disaster to make a fella feel dumb as a beaker...

tears and flushing noises,

JBArk
 
could you not extract the spice with naptha to regain what was lost. Theoretically it could not be any worse than the spice you originally pulled using the graduated cylinder as a measuring device.
 
jbark said:
Alright i'll say it for all of you thinking it:

NOOB!!

I feel better already.:d

JBArk
Click to expand...

we all been there, acetone ruined some of my plastic cups and a coffee press in my learning curve :D

OP bin the changa thats full of platicbadness now... :(
 
yeah, gammagore - closest i've been to feeling like I have sinned... Only upside is I kinda like extracting (I feel like an alchemist on a spirtual quest through matter), so it gives me an excuse to do so sooner.

I guess... that's my spin, anyway:?

JBArk
 
I realized I screwed up an alternative technique while brewing Ayahuasca around the 8th hour.

I also have one batch of changa that is rock hard from being contaminated with sodium carbonate... It really burns to smoke. >.< I may bury it.

It's best to just take time and do everything properly... you will always be rewarded with the experience. :)
 
If you use the same cylinder to measure out your naptha then simply placing the contaminated changa in naptha will recover the lost spice as well as some other alks from the other herbs. No plastic residue should be soluble in the naptha if the graduated cylinder is truly safe with naptha. If something from the cylinder is absorbed then the resulting spice will be just as pure/impure as any spice you have previously extracted using the cylinder.
 
The best lessons are always learned the hard way. I lost my first seperatory funnel by corking it during an A/B while the lye was reacting with the acidic MHRB...... KABOOM!
 
Dorge said:
SWIM no longer has any spatulas...
Click to expand...

This totally had me chuckling. Anyhow I am obsessed with only using glass in any chemical process. Plastic is cheap but there are far too many chances of something in the plastic getting absorbed in the product. FYI you can get a lot of lab glass items in hobby stores where they have a hobby chemistry sets for kids.
 
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