Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
Remember soap on a rope? The idea was that if the soap was hanging up instead of in a soap dish, it wouldn't be all soft and soggy the next time you shower. Well, alum blocks should get a chance to dry out, too. I had a bunch of these 52 cent alum blocks I bought at Talal Supermarket in the Jebel Ali Free Zone in Dubai and I got to tinkering around with dissolving and precipitating the alum and wow... I thought wouldn't it be cool to have alum on a rope? So here ya go.
Well I tried for like a half hour to post the pic but nothing happens. Anyway it's a great big gigantic hunk of alum witha bight of 1/4" braided nylon embedded in it so I can hang it up to dry. It took several pours. The first one gave me a bunch of 1/4" cubic crystals mostly on the bottom of the 500ml water bottle and a gnarly bunch of random crystals on the braided nylon hanging down into the bottle. After a few hours I poured the water back out, brought it to a rolling boil again and dissolved once more as much alum as it would dissolve, and poured again. This time the bottom 1/3 of the bottle filled up almost solid and the upper 2/3 were about half. The next two pours nearly filled the bottle with crystal alum up to the high water line. Interesting thing about these cheap plastic drinking water bottles... they shrink when you fill them with boiling water. Anyway after four pours there was only one small void so I called it quits, and after a decent interval I cut the plastic bottle away from my big-@$$ alum block on a rope. It is hanging up to dry out for a couple of days before I use it. A few crystals crumbled off the bottom but I sorta expected that.
Alum melts, by the way. I am on a ship right now and so I don't have any convenient way to melt alum, but when I get home I will do a melt-and-pour alum-on-a-rope. Think "squashed nearly flat tennis ball" and that is the shape I am thinking of, with a slightly concave working surface for rubbing on the face, and slightly convex for the pits. (I use alum for deoderant too... works much better than any scented deo.) Of course if someone beats me to it, I don't mind them having all the glory.
I will try to upload the pic again later on.
Well I tried for like a half hour to post the pic but nothing happens. Anyway it's a great big gigantic hunk of alum witha bight of 1/4" braided nylon embedded in it so I can hang it up to dry. It took several pours. The first one gave me a bunch of 1/4" cubic crystals mostly on the bottom of the 500ml water bottle and a gnarly bunch of random crystals on the braided nylon hanging down into the bottle. After a few hours I poured the water back out, brought it to a rolling boil again and dissolved once more as much alum as it would dissolve, and poured again. This time the bottom 1/3 of the bottle filled up almost solid and the upper 2/3 were about half. The next two pours nearly filled the bottle with crystal alum up to the high water line. Interesting thing about these cheap plastic drinking water bottles... they shrink when you fill them with boiling water. Anyway after four pours there was only one small void so I called it quits, and after a decent interval I cut the plastic bottle away from my big-@$$ alum block on a rope. It is hanging up to dry out for a couple of days before I use it. A few crystals crumbled off the bottom but I sorta expected that.
Alum melts, by the way. I am on a ship right now and so I don't have any convenient way to melt alum, but when I get home I will do a melt-and-pour alum-on-a-rope. Think "squashed nearly flat tennis ball" and that is the shape I am thinking of, with a slightly concave working surface for rubbing on the face, and slightly convex for the pits. (I use alum for deoderant too... works much better than any scented deo.) Of course if someone beats me to it, I don't mind them having all the glory.
I will try to upload the pic again later on.
