MERCURY ?

[dkees]

My mercury story. In the mid 50s a small, rural grocery/hardware store purchased an entire case of advertising thermometers. I want to say about 2500 in the case. These were not the small, cheap one you see now but were at least 12 inches high and 6 inches wide with a thermometer scale you could see from 100 feet. As I remember the case looked like a sofa came in it.

Anyway, the store owner died and his family decided to liquidate the contents. My dad purchased the box of thermometers for $2. My friends and I soon discovered the contents and, having heard you could make a new dime out of an old one, we filled a pint jar with mercury.

We poured it on everything we could think of to see what would happen. We played with that stuff until the jar was empty. There has to be traces of mercury all over our part of rural Indiana. We never got sick and all of us are still alive today. That was over 50 years ago. I still remember dropping it on a hard surface and watching it break into hundreds of small balls which rolled to who-knows-where.

 

[triggerpuller]

re; handling mercury....do NOT get it in a cut. When my chemistry prof was in school (many many years ago) one of his classmates was barefoot in the lab, stepped on some broken glass and got mercury in his foot. Result? Amputation!
Broken skin and mercury does not mix.

 

[dant]

Nicky & Dicky , got it right..........it works, use common sense, don;t eat the stuff and of course, as you can tell from the above.....
don't tell anybody..................

Merry Christmas

 

[Toxic Avenger]

don't mess with Hg. joke as you wish, but I assure yu... Dispose of it right away properly or US EPA will react without any sense of humor and beyond what yu may think is reasonable; for sure for sure!!!! Hg is nasty stuff and considered as the mostest toxic substance!!! The cleanup cost will be way beyond any joke yu may have concerning Hg.

 

[2152hq]

I've been doing rust bluing for around 45 years now. The solutions sold to do the work back when were the classic rust blue recipes. Nearly all contained a mercury compound,,,,bi-chloride of mercury.
Even the over-the-counter BirchWood Casey 'Barrel Brown' used by muzzle loader builders & hobbyists in the 60's and 70's had mercury bichloride in it. That's why it worked so well. Very corrosive stuff.

When the EPA regs cracked down on the chemical, it was gradually elliminated from the commercially made solutions sold for the work.
Reformulations & new substitutes have taken over and do just as fine a job w/o the hazzard.

Then just a few years ago Brownells advertised that they were once again selling 'Herters Original Belgian Blue'.
This was one of the better rust blue solutions from back in the day. I used it back in the 60's. The original did have merc in it. I wondered if this remake did also.

I bought the small bottle. I gave it the shop test for mercury.
Heat up a piece of polished brass (or copper) and swipe some of the solution over it. If mercury is present, it'll precipitate or plate itself onto the brass. Indeed it did,,plus it had the very distinct smell of the old merc solutions.

I never used it again since that simple test. I doubt it could be any other element other than merc in it. I don't need any more exposure to that stuff. I'm surprised it's marketed at all.
I use a ferric chloride solution most of the time now and a slow rust procedure.
Don't be reckless with mercury or any chemicle. You or someone else could needlessly end up with severe health problems.

 

[ImprovedModel56Fan]

Now can we discuss the DDT Dad used to keep in the garage?

Yes. Hg may be a joke as long as you don't do stupid stuff with it, but banning DDT is not funny at all. Malaria is making a comeback these days. Like I said, the EPA is lot more dangerous than mercury.

 

[Andy Griffith]

This reminds me of people telling me not to eat salt pork, sausage, ham hocks, butter, biscuits, eggs, chocolate, cigars, liquor and other wonderful things that make life wonderful.

I don't know if I have any around the house right now...I need to get some I think. We used the last DDT about 20 years ago.

 

[saturner1]

Calorimeters, (old ones) used to measure the BTU rating of natural gas used quarts of mercury. My Dad was head of measurement for Northern Natural Gas, and we always had a quart bottle of the stuff at the house. We played with it all the time. I would not do that now.

 

[captainjohnsofd]

Mercury is quite toxic. A quick search on the internet will give you the whole scoop. Using precautions will minimize the dangers of exposure to small amounts of the stuff. I am a career fire captain and have hazmat certification- I will stick to the Lewis Lead Remover.

 

[Chubbs103]

I used to play with mercury as a kid too. Of course looking back, I'm amazed I survived a lot of very stupid things that I did. That is not an exaggeration. The mercury was the least of it. I'm sure most of us have these stories. Apparently, God really does look over adolescent boys.

I know for a fact the EPA takes it very seriously now. Some kids found some mercury in an old factory building a few years ago in the city I was working for. The city literally pulled up the sidewalks around the place.

Chubbs

 

[PattonTime]

Lead Removal

I was shown how well Hydrogen peroxide removes leading by an old local gunsmith.
I do not think it poses any health risks and it sure works well for me .
I use an earplug to plug one end of the barrel, then I pour hydrogen peroxide in and wait about half an hour. I then use a copper bore brush, I have had big lengths of lead come out of a 45 Colt revolver barrel.
it seems to loosen the bond between the lead and the barrel very well.
Does anyone know if there are any barrel hazards to this method ?
It sure seems to work well.