Failed glass

Well, after a second try with the same stuff, the antimony glass failed. Just kept vitrifying back into antimony rather than form the glass. I believe I didn't spend enough time roasting it, as a lot of sulfur smoke was coming off, which I think interfered with making the glass. This only reinforces the importance of spending a lot of time roasting, which I don't think I did. So I know what I did wrong, and I know what to do, just sucks that I spent all that time and now have to start over with it.

Antimony glass prep

Almost done roasting the stibnite. When the weather is good (it's raining right now), and I have enough time away from work, I'll make the glass. This time, I'm going to use laboratory grade acetic acid with distilled water instead of my own distilled vinegar - I think I may have better results that way.
Once that roasting is done, I'm going to do some work on roasting galena, then Kermes mineral. So lots to do.

Glassblowing and stuff

I know I haven't posted in a while; that's cuz I've been busy with a few other things. But I try to do what I can in the lab when I can. I've been keeping up with my acetate path projects and the fire stone, also continuing to roast stibnite to make some antimony oil. Not much has really been worth mentioning.
I got all my equipment for glassblowing, and I started getting my hands dirty with it outside. (I don't want to do it inside for safety reasons.) I managed to singe the hairs on my arm, as well as ruin a whole glass tube and several test tubes. I realize I'm just starting out, but man do I suck! :P I guess I need a lot of practice.... a LOT.

Collecting tartar oil; Fire Stone work

My work on the 7 planetary elixirs is done, they're in incubation right now and will be for three months. Right now I'm working on collecting enough oil of tartar for my work on the Acetate Path using galena. In the meantime I'm continuing my work on the Fire Stone; I've finished extracting the acetate from the Kermes I made and am evaporating that down until I get crystals. I'll post a picture of what I get when that's done.

A curious anomaly regarding calcining

I used horsetail for one of my planetary elixirs, and working with this proved to be most interesting. As you can see from the first image, it is still very dark. This is after days of calcining at around 300C, and despite this the ashes remain quite dark. The literature says we must calcine until the ashes are a very light gray to white, but this proved extremely difficult with horsetail. Other plants are quite easy to calcine to white. So, I decided to try leaching anyhow. What happened was quite remarkable: After mixing with distilled water, the ashes settled within a half hour (normally it takes a few hours for this to happen with most other herbs). After continuing with the rest of the ashes, the Salt it yielded was whiter than snow - the last picture doesn't do it justice, as it is a lot whiter than this. So, from my experience, if you cannot get your ashes to light gray or white, try leaching anyhow, as it may very well turn out well anyhow.

New thimble

Went to the local glassblowing store (after I finally found it), bought a length of pyrex glass tubing, had it cut to length, and now my work on the Fire Stone is back in action. Might take a while though, lots to get through.

Busted Glass Tube

About a month ago I had ordered a 28mm glass tube from eBay so that I could make myself a thimble for the soxhlet (the plastic one I was using dissolved in the acetic acid I was using). However, this particular seller was two weeks late in mailing it, and when it did finally arrive, the packaging was so horrible (was merely a cardboard tube, no padding) that the tube had shattered into a million pieces long ago. I was going to use this for my work on the Fire Stone, however it looks like that's even further delayed because of this.
There is a bright side: I recently found a glassblowing shop right in my neighbourhood (it wasn't there earlier, just seemed to pop out of nowhere). So tomorrow, having the day off, I will pay them a visit and see if they have what I need.

Random Joke

You know you're an alchemist when you have backups of everything cuz you know the first one's going to eventually blow up somehow.

Almost done 7 Basic Plant Elixirs

I just have one more extraction to go, and that's the basil tincture (doing all this by soxhlet extraction). The salts of each are almost done, just need to finish off the rosemary, then will do the horsetail (for the extraction I just finished), then lastly the basil salts. Once those are done I'm moving on to calcining/roasting some stibnite and galena for some projects.

Rosemary Salt Crystals

Last night I set my hotplate down to around 70C and left it overnight so that the rosemary salts would condense, and this morning I found these beautiful crystals had grown.

Cerussite!

I just bought a 528g chunk of cerussite for about 80 bucks off eBay; I'm very happy about that. Usually this stuff is horribly expensive. If you're wondering, cerussite is naturally occurring lead carbonate, which can be easily used in the Acetate Path. It's actually much easier to use than galena, as it doesn't require all the roasting.

Bugging neighbours... again

I may have gotten carried away a little with all the burning (calcining) I've been doing lately, even though it's all been done in the dead of the night. One of my neighbours had their window open last night and now their bedroom stinks :S Oopse. I guess I'll have to not only do my calcining at night but when there's also a wind or storm. Either that or just do very small quantities at a time. Ugh. It's so much easier in the winter to calcine - everyone's windows are closed no matter what during the night.
I had an idea about calcining/roasting the galena: Perhaps I could use the heat of a candleflame to roast it? I'll try a bit and see what happens. I'll have to be careful or I'll fuse the sulfur to the lead if it's too hot too soon, so I might have it a bit higher up where it's only warm, then have it closer when all or most of the sulfur is out. I'd have to do very small quantities at a time, like perhaps only a few grams, otherwise I don't think it would work (too much for the flame to handle). All this, of course, in addition to how I would normally do it (outside with the stronger hotplate).

Rosemary extract

I started a soxhlet extraction of rosemary, now that I've finished distilling this batch of alcohol. With every batch of red wine I make, I get about 1.5 liters of 95% alcohol. The rosemary extract is being made for a close friend of mine. If this works for her, she might try the rosemary elixir.

Seven Tinctures, Alcohol distillation

I haven't been keeping up with my blogging, but that's because not a whole lot of interest has been going on lately. I have been working on creating my seven planetary elixirs, which does take a long time as I have to make the tincture, calcine the solid plant matter, leach, crystallize, etc. All this seven times over. Right now I'm in the middle of distilling and purifying fresh alcohol (made from my own wine, of course) as I ran out.
Once this is all done the seven elixirs will go into incubation for one or two months, maybe longer, so that the salt can fully combine with the tinctures. During that time I will be roasting some stibnite and galena (outside, of course).
This summer I plan on having a weekend alchemy seminar with some friends. So far the plan is we will be creating a silver tree, an everburning light, and doing one or two steam distillations of orange peels. All pictures will be posted on the website for your perusal. Should prove to be very fun and interesting!

First Stages of the Fire Stone

Here is the first step in this method of creating the Fire Stone: creating the Kermes mineral. A solution of water and sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) is mixed with ground stibnite (antimony ore). This "opens" the mineral for further work. The Kermes is precipitated out of this solution of caustic soda and stibnite using acetic acid (this takes a lot of work!). When the Kermes precipitates, it is washed in a soxhlet a few times to get rid of the sodium acetate that forms, then run through the soxhlet with purified vinegar or acetic acid. This may need to be done a few times, so it is a lot of work.

Calcining galena using nitric acid

In this small experiment I did about a week ago I tried to find the proper concentration of nitric acid to do the job of chemically calcining galena.
Right now I'm pouring my work into the creation of the Fire Stone (you can see some pics in my Gallery section), so I will continue with this work soon.

Wet Path - Problems with calcining

With the good weather I've decided to try and re-calcine my galena. So far with no luck: I started again at around 200 and over the course of several hours increased it slowly up to 500, and left it at that temperature for about two days. No visible change was noticed in the ground galena, as you can see in the picture. It still looks like uncalcined galena. I remember reading a method of extraction using nitric acid, then using acetic acid, so I might try that method when I have an extra few hours during a nice day.

Seven Basics

The weather is pretty miserable, and will be for a good few days. In the meantime I'll content myself with making some Basic Elixirs. I've started off with extracting the tincture of dandelion leaves using a big soxhlet extractor. I'll then calcine some of the plant and leach it for the Salt, then circulate the salts and tincture together for a few months. I'll do this for six other plants as well, each with a different ruling planet.
When the weather gets better and warmer I'll calcine my galena again to start the Acetate Path all over again.

Oil of Antimony update

My first try at the oil of antimony failed. I distilled the alcohol off a good number of times and I got nothing. I'll keep the alcohol as antimonial alcohol and see if it has any beneficial effects. I'm not worried though, this is how I learn. I'll be trying again using yellow glass and see how that goes. I'm just finishing up with drying some Salt and then when the weather's good I'll be starting my projects for this year.

Calcining, leaching, separating

Not a whole lot has happened. I'm continuing the calcining and leaching of my extra caraway and wine dregs (separately of course). I've also taken advantage of our good weather lately and separated out the acetic acid from the galena from my first attempt at the Acetate Path lat year, and will be purifying both further for another attempt. I've also ground up some stibnite in preparation for my work on the Fire Stone via the Kermes Method. Fun times!

Oil of Antimony

I've started the last stages of making the oil of antimony, which is seven distillations and cohobations. I really don't know how this is going to turn out because all the way through this project I've encountered difficulties, ie. not getting a proper coloured tincture, and not a whole lot of powder (antimony acetate) in the end given the amount of antimony glass I started off with - ie. after starting with about a pound of glass I ended up with about an ounce of antimony acetate. So I may or may not get an oil. I'll take pictures as I go along and post when I'm done.

Celandine Stone effects

So after about five months in incubation I finally took out my celandine stone and bottled it in a sealed vial. This was made using a method given to me by a fellow alchemist and friend. I took a dose about the size of a wheat kernel and chased it with about an ounce of wine. In only a few minutes I started to feel lightheaded. A warmth gathered in my solar plexus and just kept growing and growing, radiating outwards. It grew in intensity and finally when the warmth hit my head I passed out - I slept for about two hours. I didn't remember any of what I dreamed about, but when I woke I felt quite refreshed, although still a little groggy. Even now, about nine hours after taking it, I still feel its effects somewhat.

Getting into Glassblowing

I'm in the process of ordering glassblowing equipment including a torch, hoses, and work area equipment. I intend on making much of my own lab equipment this way, including philosophical Eggs (see a previous post on my failed attempts at this - inadequate equipment), condensers, circulatory vessels, and maybe even learn to make retorts. I might also play around with glass art, like flowers, animals, etc, of an alchemical nature/motif. All this equipment will be bought from sundanceart.com, a company based in California. I just hope I don't torch my house - I've had some good luck so far with the regular propane torch in not burning anything, including myself. A small torch like that is very limiting though. I'll post pictures and such as I progress in this.

Distilling methanol

As a favour for a friend, I did an experiment to see if methanol (ie a byproduct of fermenting wine, which is quite poisonous, as opposed to the good alcohol which is ethanol or ethyl alcohol) can be eliminated via regular distillation using simple equipment. Surprisingly I found it quite difficult.
Methyl distills at roughly 65C, ethyl at 78C, and water at 100C. I got very close to the boiling point of the ethyl (75C) and yet nothing would distill over. I even used aluminum foil as a thermal barrier to help the methyl be carried over to the condenser, and still nothing. Either this means that no matter what a small amount of methanol will be present in distilled/purified alcohol, or somewhere I made a mistake with my setup.

Leaching

More leaching, more calcining. Almost done purifying the Salt of Sulfur for my Opus Minor of John Reid project. Soon I'll be moving on to imbibing/incubating.

Leaching

Not much going on today in the lab. I'm still drying that potassium carbonate and also leaching the Salt of Sulphur for my work on John Reid's Minor Opus.

Trying to Make a Philosophical Egg

Today I made perhaps my fifth attempt at making my own Philosophical Egg - this is basically a small flask with a really long neck. I tried making one out of pyrex glass tubing, and test tubes. All failed because a small hole would pop its way through. I really think it's my torch, that it's not strong enough. I'm using a propane torch, whereas glassblowers typically use oxy-acetylene torches (they cost about $400, which I don't have). I've read online that you can use propane, but it's very limiting. I think there's one website that sells special torch heads for propane tanks geared for glass blowing, so I might try that.

Drying pot. carb., calcining

Today I'm retrieving old potassium carbonate and distilling alcohol from when I made absolute alcohol a few weeks ago. This helps cut down on costs and reuses a lot, as a lot of material is used in this process. You can see in the picture what the goopy potassium carbonate looks like when it's dried. Because it tends to spit a lot, getting everything around it covered with potassium carbonate, I use a cylinder made out of flashing for roofs as a shield to help with this. Stirring when it's closer to being completely dry helps as well, as it otherwise is very difficult to scrape out of the pyrex dish. The distillation is just a normal distillation in a water bath. Usually the alcohol ends up being at around 90%.
I'm also calcining some caraway for both Salt and Salt of Sulphur. Every time I calcine Salt of Sulphur it always takes more heat and longer periods of time and regular Salt (of Salt). Maybe because of the increased amount of organic compounds in the Salt of Sulphur.

Spring Projects Planned

I have a few projects planned for this year, most of which I'll be starting once it warms up in the spring. I'll be starting the Fire Stone via the Kermes method, as well as restarting my Wet Path project using galena. Both of these need to be done outside, as toxic smoke is released and no one wants that inside.

Circulatum Minus Project

Well, after all that effort, the Circulatum I made is a bust. As you can see from the picture, even after a day there was no real Separation. I'm going to have to go back to the drawing board and try again.