Re: Modifying bleaches and handling muriatic

Ahhhh.

Very good cautionary note.

I have a container of muriatic purchased to clean concrete, quart size, in storage in my garden shed. I will now check condition.

C

>
> On Mon, 29 Nov 2004, MARTINM wrote:
>
> > Actually, there are a great many oxidizers that can do the job - from copper
> > sulfate to ceric sulfate (not to mention nasties like bromine and the like).
>
> Those varigam formulas didn't (at least in my use) give the variation that
> was imputed to them. But the mirror silver toners (as in P-F #3, specular
> silver toner of "My Secret Formula" p. 28), require copper sulfate. It
> also gave different tones according to the acid used. Plus it's available
> (or used to be) for about $7 a pound at nursery supply places (plant
> nursery, not baby nursery). As I recall, it's called blue vitriol.
>
> And another note about acid -- "muriatic" acid was mentioned in a way that
> seemed to imply it's relatively safe. It is in fact more or less the same
> concentration as the hycrochloric you buy from chemical suppliers (memory
> says maybe 34% vs. 37%); the difference is in purity, as well of course as
> price.
>
> The muriatic, intended for construction purposes, costing $7/gallon at
> Janovic, isn't as pure as the chemical supplier's. Tho in my tests it
> performed better than the HCL, improved presumably by the impurities...
> (I used it enough years ago so the details have fuzzed in memory -- tho I
> daresay Ryuki will supply those and then some.)
>
> However, a very important caveat -- I used about a quart & stored the
> rest, in 3 quart jars -- but FOOLISHLY with metal caps. While I wasn't
> watching, within a few months those metal caps had crumbled and proceeded
> to relase fumes that devoured/corroded the stainless sink over them, the
> metal light chain overhead, and all sorts of objects near and relatively
> far... then one got knocked over, etc. When I discovered that (not quite
> immediately) I transfered the remainder to heavy plastic containers which
> I left outdoors. Less than a year later, they were empty... Meaning it's
> hard for the lay person to store such quantities safely.
>
> (We had some workmen about 25 years ago who knocked over a 15
> gallon drum of the stuff which happened to have a hole in it & left it
> overnight -- by morning the hall over my darkroom was 3 inches deep
> in muriatic -- another story I may even have told in these pages a while
> back. Which is to say, if a gallon is the least you can buy, dispose of
> most of it promptly -- and advisedly.)
>
> Judy
Received on Tue Nov 30 09:44:13 2004