U of S | Mailing List Archive | alt-photo-process-l | Re: baume meter

Re: baume meter



Judy,

http://www.coleparmer.com/catalog/product_index.asp?search=baume&x=41&y=10

The reason for the test tube vs. the fatty graduate--you
have to fill a greater volume in the bigger diameter
container.

I found $24.50 + shipping not too big a deal to get an
accurate idea of what different baume gums feel like.

Actually, the correct name is an hydrometer I
think...because googling "baume meter" has problems :)

BTW it isn't digital, it is kindof a weird looking
contraption, too.  Not terribly high tech.
Chris



----- Original Message Follows -----
From: Judy Seigel <jseigel@panix.com>
To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
Subject: baume meter
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:23:22 -0400 (EDT)

>On Wed, 29 Aug 2007, Christina Z. Anderson wrote:
>
>> The answer to your question is to buy a $30 baume meter
>> from Cole Parmer and  also a test tube tall enough so it
>> can be submerged mostly (about a foot).  I've been
>communicating with Art Chakalis about this and he has a
>measure of
>
>Chris, I'm curious about this $30 "baume meter."  A long
>time ago (tho not  so long as it could have been) I used a
>baume meter from the chem  department at school... It was a
>beautiful little thing, probably from  about 1890, some
>simple but delicate/intricate mechanical operation....  and
>it was all I could do to refrain from stealing it. (Tho I
>did refrain,  or maybe I just lacked courage -- which was
>dumb in the long run, because  a year later they closed
>that dept & the darling old thingum was probably  dumped).
>I was trying to see if the differences I found in behavior
>among  commercial gums (quite striking) were from different
>baume -- they  weren't, as all were about the same, as was
>the pH. I finally decided the  differences were from
>preservative and/or source of the acacia, which I'd  never
>know for sure, so live with it.
>
>But that "thingum" was a simple little device, used (if
>memory serves)  also in winemaking.  I can't see a
>contemporary version costing $30 (maybe  $6)-- so I'm
>imagining there's now a digital instrument. I ask out of 
>curiosity as I have no plans to abandon my nice commercial
>live-forever  gums.  But what is the $30 baume meter?
>Battery operated?  Hard drive  attached?  And Cole Porter
>-- or I guess that's Cole Parmer.  They have a  website?
>
>Have you used this instrument? .... I remember the rather
>expensive pH  meter I bought that never worked as well as
>the strips on a roll... which  of course may have been my
>fault for not properly titrating the solution.  There's
>probably an adage about that... (probably Occam's razor,
>tho that  is of course wrong).
>
>Meanwhile, TIA & happy labor day
>
>PS. What did work very well in the chem lab was, not a test
>tube, but a  rather fat graduate (the glass, not the human
>kind). You could fit  whatever you wanted in it.
>
>Judy 

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