APOLLO Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 Brit15 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold unravelled Posted October 9, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 9, 2016 In the late 50s, at junior school, my mother was the science teacher. Lessons could be boring as she had usually tried them out on me the night before. One standard demonstration she did, (not tested at home), at the start of term was to set up a mercury in glass barometer, which would stand at the front of the classroom for weeks. There was probably a bit of finger dipping at the start, but the mercury pool just got dustier until it was dismantled, and the mercury put back in its jar. The only near nasty incident she suffered was during a distillation demonstration, when she put in a cork where the flask should have been open. Partway through the demo, there was a bang as the cork blew out, and the front row was showered with potassium permanganate solution. Fortumately in its journey to the ceiling and back it had cooled so there were no burns. However the ceiling retained its stain until the building was demolished. When I was at secondary school, the trick with liberated magnesium ribbon was to take the pins from a 13 amp plug, and put them in a socket. The ribbon was layed across live and neutral, and the socket switched on from a safe distance, (an umbrella was useful here). The biggest hazard I've probably been exposed to is a manufacturers sample to my father, who was an architect. The sample was a fist sized chunk of rock asbestos, which we were occasionally allowed to pick at, to see how the rock broke into fibres, and wafted away on the air currents. Happy days... Dave Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kickstart Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 At school I remember sucking sulphuric acid into a pipette to transfer it into another test tube, what could possibly go wrong? Err, from experience..... When the bottle runs out you get a mouthful of whatever liquid is in the bottle. In my case 3 molar hydrochloric acid. While Coke takes a while to make you teeth feel rough, that acid did it in a split second All the best Katy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted October 9, 2016 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 9, 2016 All these experiments in the science labs don't compare to the usual one of seeing if naturally produced methane will ignite. One boy, who is now a practising barrister in Leeds tried it once in assembly dropping his trousers whilst another lad held the lighter at a safe distance. The blue flame was duly lit. Some years later he had to cross examine me in Crown court where he was defending one of two gannif's who'd stolen my first car. He couldn't understand why none of his tricks worked on me. I didn't see the wig and gown, only the blue flame. Jamie Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dazzler Fan Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 +In the 40's I bit a thermometer breaking the bowl.They made me spit everything out, hung by my feet.I am still here today more than 70 years later! Noel Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Ian Smeeton Posted October 9, 2016 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 9, 2016 Hanging by your feet? Regards, Ian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jjb1970 Posted October 9, 2016 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 9, 2016 Years ago most of OCL/P&OCLs container ships used Dobie-McInnes teledip tank gauging systems which gave remote indication of all the ballast and fuel tank levels using mercury manometers. So the engine control rooms had long lines of mercury filled gauges, for a bit of harmless fun we used to see if you could purge the line hard enough to blow the mercury out of the top...... On exposure to harmful substances probably my worst moment was being drenched from head to toe (literally) in benzene, good job there were no smokers near me that day. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkC Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 I built one of these mercury column Fitzroy barometers some 20 years ago, from a kit purchased from a specialist shop in Leominster. It hangs in our hallway, and is often admired by visitors. It's a lovely thing; but I'm acutely aware of disposal issues, were something to happen to it. Yes, my family are also aware... About 16 years ago, I joined a ship to be greeted with the news that a quantity of mercury was now in the bilges. On asking what had happened, I was informed that the Chief Engineer I had taken over from had decided to fit a replacement manometer to the Main Engine Scavenge Air manifold. (The engine was a big B&W 2 stroke). For reasons only known to himself, he had decided to use a mercury column, rather than a pressure gauge. One morning, there was a fire in the scavenge belt; the resulting pressure surge forced the column of mercury out, and for several days afterwards, beads of the stuff were regularly seen rolling across various Engine Room floor plates & then the tank tops. It proved impossible to collect it all up before it found its way into the bilges... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium rab Posted October 9, 2016 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 9, 2016 I may have shared this before, apologies if so. One of our science master's favourites centred around an upturned tin with a sparking plug screwed into a hole in the bottom. The upturned tin was left innocently looking over a bunsen burner while we were set a piece of written work which involved quiet concentration. What wasn't very obvious from a distance was the two wires, one fixed to the plug and the other to the tin, with the other ends connected to magneto hidden under his desk. As the class was quietly working away, there would be the quiet hiss of gas from the bunsen burner followed by, yes you guessed it, a loud bang as he gave the mag a spin, Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Phil Bullock Posted October 9, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 9, 2016 When I started work in a lab.... We had picric acid, nitrocellulose and sulphuric and nitric acids.... Allegedly a previous incumbent of my post had been taken away by HMC for blowing up culverts under roads... Probably worse....chloroform, ether, acetone, benzene and toluene just went down the sink. Often followed by a cigarette butt from a senior member of staff who really should have known better Surprised the building was still standing Oh - and then there was fulminate of silver, and the fact that large volumes of saline containing sodium azide went down the sink too.... copper pipes then degrade to copper azide, also explosive.... Surprised I am still here really... Phil Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bescotbeast Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 I well remember someone in our chemistry lab at school dropping a mercury filled thermometer and the teacher calmly cleaning the mess and mercury up with no fuss, when I then started work in the Lab at Royal Doulton in 1989 we used an open jar of Mercury, to measure the density of clay biscuit samples. Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kickstart Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 Hi As an aside I have a set of mercury vacuum gauges in the garage for balancing carbs. Not sure where I would get replacement mercury if required these days. All the best Katy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcm@gwr Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 Just remembered, the next in charge (in the chemistry labs) was definitely on another planet, most of the time. Once, he decided to do one of the banned experiments, (banned by whatever authority it was then that was in charge of teachers, etc.) and created a small quantity of nitro-glycerine! Upon suggesting that we went and tested it, those that were nearest the door got well ahead of him, the rest of us hung back a bit. We ended up in the girls coat/locker room, 2 floors below the lab, we stood around the edge and he threw it into the middle of the floor, it blew a hole in the concrete floor (12" dia &1:5" deep) and we all had ringing in our ears for the rest of the day! He got hauled over the coals for that one and nearly lost his job, not surprisingly! Mind you, we got our own back later, when, during a 6th form coffee morning, to which the teaching staff were invited, we waited for him to walk in, 2 of us picked him up by the elbows (he was not tall) and went through the motions of throwing him out of the window (we were 3 floors up). He did start to panic as we got him onto the window-sill, interestingly enough, not one of the other staff attempted to stop us! As someone said recently, on Radio 2, different times. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wombatofludham Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 At our comprehensive in Rugeley we had our science labs opened by HRH Princess Margaret (she had a nice red kettle named after her by the Superior Railway I believe) which were open plan, not the brightest of ideas when you had large classes of over exciteable kids and a 1970s teaching shortage, but one day not long after the opening we sixth formers were in one end of the building working on some experiement when there was a huge bang from the class next door followed by a lot of screaming and soon afterwards by the firebell. This was at the time of the IRA and we'd not long had a "bomb scare" at school (which turned out to be one of the more creative fifth formers who was bored one day and did a rather good Irish accent) so everyone thought that as HRH Princess Gin and a Fag had opened the place that it had mysteriously become a prime target over the Power Station or The Shrewsbury Arms, but no.What had actually happened was a crowd of lads had dropped magnesium into a shallow pool of acid in a large flask, put a bung on it and put it on the windowledge in the sun behind the blinds. The resultant explosion was fortunately trapped behind the blinds so no pupils were hurt by flying glass or acid but that was the kind of school I went to. Within weeks the brand new tables in the labs were pock-marked by the results of deliberate sulphuric acid dripping onto their surfaces, which were still there 30 years later when I went back for a reunion event, and there was charring to the gas jets on the central consoles which had been made with gas jets, power sockets and a central sink (never quite understood that as I was sure water and electricity are not happy bedfellows), and it didn't take long for our lower-wattage pupils to realise that the gas jet could make a fairly potent flame thrower if you removed the bunsen burner's hose and instead lit the gas tap. Some of the stuff we got to play with (as well as asbestos mats, remember them?) would make modern compensation-seeking parents reach for the phone. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
spikey Posted October 9, 2016 Author Share Posted October 9, 2016 Some of the stuff we got to play with (as well as asbestos mats, remember them?) would make modern compensation-seeking parents reach for the phone. Never mind your asbestos mats - I was still wearing asbestos gauntlets regularly into the early 1980's! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bescotbeast Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 At our comprehensive in Rugeley we had our science labs opened by HRH Princess Margaret (she had a nice red kettle named after her by the Superior Railway I believe) which were open plan, not the brightest of ideas when you had large classes of over exciteable kids and a 1970s teaching shortage, but one day not long after the opening we sixth formers were in one end of the building working on some experiement when there was a huge bang from the class next door followed by a lot of screaming and soon afterwards by the firebell. This was at the time of the IRA and we'd not long had a "bomb scare" at school (which turned out to be one of the more creative fifth formers who was bored one day and did a rather good Irish accent) so everyone thought that as HRH Princess Gin and a Fag had opened the place that it had mysteriously become a prime target over the Power Station or The Shrewsbury Arms, but no. What had actually happened was a crowd of lads had dropped magnesium into a shallow pool of acid in a large flask, put a bung on it and put it on the windowledge in the sun behind the blinds. The resultant explosion was fortunately trapped behind the blinds so no pupils were hurt by flying glass or acid but that was the kind of school I went to. Within weeks the brand new tables in the labs were pock-marked by the results of deliberate sulphuric acid dripping onto their surfaces, which were still there 30 years later when I went back for a reunion event, and there was charring to the gas jets on the central consoles which had been made with gas jets, power sockets and a central sink (never quite understood that as I was sure water and electricity are not happy bedfellows), and it didn't take long for our lower-wattage pupils to realise that the gas jet could make a fairly potent flame thrower if you removed the bunsen burner's hose and instead lit the gas tap. Some of the stuff we got to play with (as well as asbestos mats, remember them?) would make modern compensation-seeking parents reach for the phone. The timeless classic of setting alight the gas tap made it's way to Blythe Bridge High School and was still around when I was there from 84-89. We also had the asbesto mats for standing the bunsen burners on, yeah we had some bold almost idiotic pupils but nothing matching what happened in Rugeley. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coppercap Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 Hi As an aside I have a set of mercury vacuum gauges in the garage for balancing carbs. Not sure where I would get replacement mercury if required these days. All the best Katy Me too - Morgan Carbtune. I've also now got the current version with stainless steel rods instead of the mercury. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kickstart Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 Me too - Morgan Carbtune. I've also now got the current version with stainless steel rods instead of the mercury. Those I the ones I have. Still use them. All the best Katy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted October 9, 2016 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 9, 2016 I've got a mercury barometer which some old aunts gave me. I had to collect it from their house in Bristol in my rather old T reg ford Fiesta known as Rattletrap. I was rather surprised when I discovered it as actually a mercury one so carved an old wine cork to fit into the open end of the tube. To transport it is was carefully wrapped and put upright in the passenger seat then strapped in with the seatbelt. The end result looked a bit like the opening credits from the antiques roadshow. It hangs on the dining room wall but will be the kids responsibility to dispose of. Jamie Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horsetan Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 At school I remember sucking sulphuric acid into a pipette to transfer it into another test tube, what could possibly go wrong?. 1. You're still here. 2. You're in Spain. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete_mcfarlane Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 Some of the science labs in the secondary school I attended had a raised area of staging at the front for the teacher to stand on. When they remodelled one of the physics labs and took the stage out, a small lake of Mercury was discovered underneath it from several decades of spillages. I too played with the stuff, and I'm not dead. Anyway, if you want fun chemicals, check out Chlorine Trifluoride. The American military spilled a ton of it back in the 1950s - it set fire to the concrete floor, burned through it, and and then set fire to the sand underneath. At this point they decided that it probably wasn't a good idea to use it as rocket fuel. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Coryton Posted October 9, 2016 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 9, 2016 Some of the science labs in the secondary school I attended had a raised area of staging at the front for the teacher to stand on. When they remodelled one of the physics labs and took the stage out, a small lake of Mercury was discovered underneath it from several decades of spillages. Some years ago I had the dubious pleasure of operating a Toepler pump. This works by driving each stroke manually by opening and closing valves to move mercury around. It is very important to open and close the valves in the correct sequence. It combined mind-numbing boredom with the knowledge that if you got it wrong you'd end up with mercury in all the wrong places. No mercury in my next job; instead that had the fun of dipping components in molten lead. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny Emily Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 What about seeing if the throne room will function on Mercury? We used to play with all sorts in school without ill effect. Some kids used to like 'acquiring' stuff from the Chemistry labs for use later on. Usually this was Magnesium ribbon, but once one kid impaled a large lump of Sodium from the jar on the Teacher's desk whilst the Teacher was out of the room. Upon hearing the return of the Teacher, he panicked and threw the large lump of Sodium down the sink and washed it down with water from the tap. It ended up making a really nasty noise before a column of burning Hydrogen jetted out quite a distance. The Teacher could not help but notice that one. Other favourites were lighting the gas taps without a Bunsen burner attached. One year the Teacher demonstrated making a bomb out of Hydrogen and Oxygen mixed in a one gallon plastic container that was stoppered with a plug that contained a spark plug. It was duly deposited in the centre of a La Crosse pitch, then detonated remotely using long wires. That rattled a few windows. In Sixth form our Organic Chemistry practicle involved fermentation, so the Teacher and the six of us in the class duly set up brewing beer as the term's project, and we all got p!$$£d on the last day of term together. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dazzler Fan Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 + As kids we chased it around on the lab bench and in our hands.Again, no lasting effects to report Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bernard Lamb Posted October 10, 2016 Share Posted October 10, 2016 To be serious for a moment. Most of us seem to have done things in the past that would be frowned on today and experienced no ill effects as yet. I have recently had breathing problems having had a bad cough and cold that would not clear up. I did nothing about it. Until I heard from a former colleague that he had just been diagnosed with an asbestos related disease and had been told he had about 18 months if he was lucky. I went straight to the doctor and told her of this colleague and was sent to the hospital for a string of tests. All clear on that side but I have been diagnosed with asthma. I can manage that. If you have any prolonged cough or cold or any persistent discomfort go and get checked over. As for the iodine trick. We tried it and could not get it to explode. We put the filter paper with the dregs in the waste bin. As the bin became full somebody stood in it to push the contents down. Brown and purple smoke and singed trouser legs was the result. It could have been far more serious. Bernard Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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