Wow, I was away and now I am lost

[ReapHer_6]

Hi All. Not really asking for help, just making a comment about taking notes.

I have been at this diligently for several months now. I have had to learn alot the hard way (usually not listening to posts that have been there and done that before me). Anyway I have made some advancements. I found a brand new 3' flow sciences fume hood for $300.00 on the auction site. I then went to my house that I have up for sale and stole (if you can call it that) my RADON fan from the attic. The radon pump was a stipulation that I required before I purchased the house. Now that its up for sale I will have to wait and see if the new buyers (if I ever find any) want one but anyway, I assembled it and it works great. For those of you that did not follow my scrubber / fume hood threads, here is what I had. I have a 40' run to the outlet of the building. I ran 4" smoothe wall plastic pipe from the hood outlet to the building outlet. I installed the 4" RADON fan there so it pulls. The hood performs perfectly. The fan is rated at 180cfm and the opening is under 2sq'. The only real variable is the fans resistance to the acids. But I built a scrubber that is in the final stages of testing and I will scrub the primary reactions and use the hood during boil downs, mixing, filtering etc.

Anyway I had a stint where I had to leave for a week and a half. I came back to solutions that I totally forgot to document and lost control over. Some were nitric baths, some were AR... I screwed up and just eneded up dumping the solutions into a pot and cementing with copper. This just goes to show the importance of good notes.

Anyway I am now going to restock the lab and begin again.

I have some actual questions, but I will have to ask them later.

Good Day
John S.

 

[gold4mike]

I've had similar missteps in the past and feel your pain.

I bought a roll of tape at Office Depot that is similar to sticky notes. I tear off a small piece of it and use a Sharpie to mark everything I have in process.

Sometimes there is a week or two delay in getting back to my shed and it helps to know what is dissolved in what when I get back to it.

 

[nickvc]

When I was running my own refinery we did many toll jobs so keeping track of whose job was who's was very important. If your using lab glass a marker pen used on the white part allows you to identify what exactly is in the beaker and who in my case it belonged to. You could use the same idea by writing brief descriptions of what's in the beaker and in what acid/ acids.

 

[ReapHer_6]

Thanks. I did end up with a small pad of mini sticky notes and then tape them to the flask as the sticky is good but adhering to the round flask sometimes makes them fall off..

I did not know that there is such a thing as a marker for the glassware... you mean something between a sharpie and a dry erase marker?

John S.

 

[Harold_V]

If it helps any, you can get small round labels, similar to address labels, but round. They have them at all office supply stores.

As all of my refining was based on the toll system, like Nick, I used them routinely for identifying the owner of the materials I processed.

They're fast and easy to mark, and to remove from glassware.

Harold

 

[ReapHer_6]

Perfect. I know of these small round labels. That is the ticket.
Thanks Harold.

John S.