Chemistry Peeps - Ideas??

TheCoilist

Elite Member
Joined
Aug 16, 2010
Messages
2,358
Location
Virginia
Okay, so my daughter has gotten big into doing weird chemistry projects. She is into making essential oils and soaps from scratch and other stuff she's learned in class (Middle School).

We have been bugging her to find a hobby and so this is what she landed on.

I know nothing about chemistry or the equipment. I have looked at kits and stuff, but have no clue what I am looking at. But she has a specific "need" for some things.

Here's what she says she "needs" to do.

She wants to be able to heat up a container with some sort of bunsen burner or similar warming device and allow things like oil or waxes to melt as they're filtered through a funnel to a collection container?


Any idea what kind of stuff can make this happen? The important thing she said is it stays warmer than room temperature or the waxes become a solid again.

Here's the pic she drew lol
 

Attachments

  • chem.jpg
    chem.jpg
    31.9 KB · Views: 639
You might try doing a search for soap making equipment. I would definitely not recommend using an open flame around oils or wax, that's a house fire waiting to happen... I'm sure they make a hobbyist version of wax melters or oil warmers. Ages ago we used to use a double boiler system for melting wax for canning, making candles, etc. so the wax was never exposed directly to the heat source.
 
Right now that's what we're doing is a double boiler, but it takes up the kitchen and pots/bowls. Then the wax gets messy when it's being cleaned out and inevitably goes down the drains in some "accidents". lol

Open flame isn't necessary if there are other warmers, but the soap kits I have seen don't really allow for distilling essential oils (or whatever the terminology is), so that's why I was wondering if there was some sort of chemistry set. The pictures she's showed me from their labs at school are like 20 piece kits with all kinds of tubes and cylinders. They're also about $1500 for a complete set. :shock:
 
I may be able to fix you up. What temps are you, (or she), needing to maintain?

I have two or three lab-type "hot plates", (for lack of a better term), that I'd be willing to send you for the shipping cost. They're 110 VAC, that I picked up years ago at an auction. I was after the one that had a stirring magnet in the table, and don't really need the others.
I'll check out the thermostat readings tomorrow to let you know how hot they'll get.

Roger
 
Have two, 600 watt, but the control knob isn't calibrated in temps, but in numbers 1-6.

PM sent.

Roger
 
Hmmmm. 14 days and no response. Tried looking in the OP's profile, and couldn't find any visitation history to see if he's been on since this thread started. Unable to find a history log, maybe there isn't one.
Wondering if he/they lost interest, or maybe something happened to him.

Roger
 
Yeah..I got experience with a daughter such as yours...very interested and whatnot in all sorts of things that kept me hopping....Lost wax casting, remedial rescue falconry, toad and salamander husbandry, Monsanto and beach/river clean ups etc.......dont worry about it..just go along with the chatter and let it play out....She still likes to make Pysanki eggs like her Mother taught her..just a little bit of wax and some colorings...No big deal here on my part...

Steer her into making pysanki eggs maybe? Pretty easy but it takes some skill and a few years to get good at...so thats a plus when it comes to daughters...:laughing:....
 

Attachments

  • river trash 2.jpg
    river trash 2.jpg
    70.5 KB · Views: 444
Ditch the flame like others said. Double pot, coffee filter. Kinda like when one makes buttah. At least that’s what a friend told me.
 
No I’m still here. Sitting in a hospital with our youngest at the moment. He’s been sick off and on and here we are.

As for my daughter she is very fickle with her hobbies. But yes we are now using some hot plates (nothing fancy) that we picked up at a local store. And a bunch of used Pyrex and mason jars. As for the wax, she’s actually using coconut oil which I find very strange stuff. My experience with it was for a mouthwash long ago. It’s a solid at room temperature and melts super easy and resolidifies. Who knows what’s going on out there in the barn these days! It’s like having Doc Brown on site. I’m finding kitchen utensils missing and everything else. It’s pretty funny actually.

For now I’m not forking over the money for chemistry stuff... bc my sick 3yr old is now wanting a metal detector. I need to focus on keeping him interested! Lol
 
You can purchase a small looking thing similar to a crockpot for melting wax it is used to melt wax for hair removal. Not sure if y’all are still looking...?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:
You can purchase a small looking thing similar to a crockpot for melting wax it is used to melt wax for hair removal. Not sure if y’all are still looking...?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Out of all the wax melting searches I did, those never came up until I put hair in the search string. That would have been probably perfect for her. I think she's just wanting to build a weird mad scientist lab or something up there. I told her if she starts cooking "breaking bad" style, we're going to have serious problems. And she laughed.

I then had to go back and ask her how she knew what I meant! :shock:

Kids these days!
 
Hope the little one is feeling better, may be best to stay out of the barn with a teenage girl. Never know what she may be cooking out there
 

Attachments

  • Flab.jpg
    Flab.jpg
    53.5 KB · Views: 367
My family is in the laboratory heating mantle business.
Anything you need right here https://www.glascol.com/heating-mantles
Going cheap used, baby bottle warmers are used by amateur medicinal oil makers when lower temps are needed. Might work for low melt waxes.

I had a chemistry set as a kid many years ago. Made a heat activated stink bomb with sulfur and a few other ingredients I cant remember. I made it long and skinny, then took the tobacco out of Dads cigarette, put they stink bomb in and replaced the tobacco and put it back in the pack of cigarettes. Damn near killed him, we still laugh about it 40 years later, well everybody but Dad, he's still mad.
 
I had a chemistry set as a kid many years ago. Made a heat activated stink bomb with sulfur and a few other ingredients I cant remember. I made it long and skinny, then took the tobacco out of Dads cigarette, put they stink bomb in and replaced the tobacco and put it back in the pack of cigarettes. Damn near killed him, we still laugh about it 40 years later, well everybody but Dad, he's still mad.

Royally enjoyed your story, Scooterjim! :laughing::laughing: KT also had a chem set...got it for Christmas when in the 6th grade. Had all kinds of fun with it in our basement, but most memorable was when KT made some fuming nitric acid, which filled the room with brown acrid fumes! Knowing this was bad, KT immediately opened all the windows and put a box fan in the one nearest the event site, and sucked all the fumes out the window! Later that year all the plants near that window died, and only I knew why! :laughing::laughing:

BTW, do you ride a scooter? KT does!
 
Back
Top Bottom