• Members of the previous forum can retrieve their temporary password here, (login and check your PM).

Naphtha isnt seperating at ALL

Migrated topic.
C

chazman

Rising Star
Im doing the lazyman tek...and after letting it sit for an hour, there is still no layer that my eyes can see. Can anyone please help me?
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
How much bark are you using?Did you add enough water?My friend noticed the first time he did a straight to base tek it was really thick and the naptha did not want to seperate.If that is the case then just add some water and make sure it is basified enough.It should seperate then.Good luck.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I used a pound of bark, 13 tablespoons of lye and 250 ml of naptha at first. My spoons are a little small, so I added a few more tablespoons in the REALLY thick goop. Then 20 minutes later I added in 300ml more of naphtha. It's definitely alot more fluid now. Im going to wait about an hour and see whats up. Thank you for your help man. I really appreciate it.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
i'm sort of having the same problem too. the naptha i put in the the goo dissapears after a hour. im was expecting a bunch of naptha at the end but all i got was black goo. i'm pretty sure it liquid enough too.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You aren't using near enough lye. What I would do is add about another 250 grams of lye. Nomans tek calls for a gram per gram of bark . A pound of bark is 454 grams . I weighed a rounded spoonful of lye at 12 grams. This was just a regular stuff your face type spoon that looked about like a tablespoon. If your spoon is similar you then have ~ 175-225 grams of lye after you added the "extra" you spoke of. Nomans tek that many find works very well calls for 1 gram lye per gram of bark and 15ml per gram of bark. I've measured the ph of that blend and it's around 13+ on my cheap meter. I would get another extraction container identical to the one you already have and take half of the solution and put it in the new container then add 10-15 of your spoonfuls of lye to EACH container( before you divide the solution shake the shit out of it to try and evenly distribute all the ingredients). This may be overkill with the lye but without knowing how much is in there it's better to overdo it than underdo it. Then top off the containers with water, shake, and wait for it to seperate. You don't have to divide the container you could just add 20 some spoonfuls of lye and wait but I think your extraction might end up cleaner if you thin the solution a bit. Nomans tek recommends 450 grams lye and 6.75 liters of water for that lb of rootbark and if you didn't weigh the bark and are just counting on the vendor being accurate that may have an effect as well.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
[quote:d318854310="angryanus"]i'm sort of having the same problem too. the naptha i put in the the goo dissapears after a hour. im was expecting a bunch of naptha at the end but all i got was black goo. i'm pretty sure it liquid enough too.[/quote:d318854310] You do have a lid on it while it's seperating, right? I mention that just because if you have lye still releasing heat in the mix at least some of the naptha could just evaporate away. I doubt this is the problem and you just need to add lye but I thought that I'd mention it.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
yeah its covered... i'm not that slow. the lye solution is cooled before i put anything in. its a gunk solution in a separatory funnel with naphtha on top(plus the glass top). whenever i come back very little naphtha remains. i didnt have this problem before i dunno why im having it now.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I found out my problem. Not enough lye! Even though I added in well over 300 grams...seperation was rather difficult..I so added probably over 500 grams of lye. I waited a few hours, and BAM. One huge thick layer on top that was asking me for evaporation. What flashed before my eyes, im still not sure of....but I will never forget it. Thank you for all the help guys.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
last night I set out a jar that was easily, easily separating and there was tons of naphtha in it. This morning, i woke up (the top was sealed on TIGHT!!), and there weren't nearly as big of layers. After stirring it and letting it sit, the layers didn't come back so I added at least 20g of NAOH. I'm completely confused...why would the layers be there yesterday, but not today...even with a higher pH level...?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I dunno...I usally leave the naphtha in there for only a max of 4 or 5 hours. I let the lye do the longest part. Usually a couple days or so. But like I said, I dont know why that happened :-/
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Rainbow Serpent, If you're doing the base tek with chunks of bark, then I suppose it's possible that the chunks broke down and caused an overall drop in ph and therefore the willingness of the naptha to sperate dropped with the ph. As far as where the layers went, that beats the bejesus out of me! Unless someone shook the shit up or the bottle somehow 'vented' after adding the lye , the layers should have stayed there.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Ideally the lye should be added to water beforehand and then added to the bark after the exothermic reaction is spent. Doing it that way adds a bit of safety. Wether adding in solution or dry some gas will be released when adding the lye to the bark so you will have to vent it a little to keep from developing a dangerous amount of pressure in the bark/lye solution. The pressure is important to vent as it may cause [i:cd1ff953d5]some[/i:cd1ff953d5] containers to explode. It's also important to remember that if using a mason jar or other glass container that lye will etch the glass and the jar will eventually fail. I've had this happen when , in my lazy ignorance had lye solution sitting in a mason jar for many weeks. The jar just collapsed and basically scared the crap out of me.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Back
Top Bottom