Liquid Wrench - Page 5 - Cycling Mob: Road Cycling, Mountain Biking and More

02-25-2005, 08:39 PM

Tom Sherman <[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]> writes:

> Størker Moe wrote:
>
>> Yup, ammonia is a base. For the more extreme cases, a solution of
>> caustic (AKA sodium hydroxide) literally removes the seatpost. The
>> base dissolves aluminum forming sodium aluminum hydroxide and
>> hydrogen gas. Takes some time with thick-walled seatposts, but it
>> works. I tried it once after using up two hacksaw blades and still
>> not having gone through the post.
>> Don't try this at home, kids, and read the MSDS.
>
> Is sodium hydroxide any worse than potassium hydroxide? I have had
> skin contact with potassium hydroxide many times and as long as it was
> washed off right away, it was not big deal.

They are both about the same, but don't let your experience with KOH
fool you, these are not exactly benign compounds. They are not
"poisonous" per se, but strong solutions will happily disolve your
flesh. Brief skin contact is no big deal, but get some in your eye or
swallow some and you are likely to have problems. (There are lots of
folks running around who can't eat anymore and have to collect their
spit in a cup because they tried to kill themselves drinking drain
cleaner.) Just use common sense and follow standard safety
precautions like wearing goggles and always adding the crystals to the
water and not the other way around.

02-26-2005, 04:17 PM

Størker Moe wrote:

> Don't try this at home, kids, and read the MSDS.

Yup, be careful. Fortunately I was. When I was 12 years old back in about
1966 we used NaOH, water and Al in glass Coca-Cola bottles to inflate
baloons, attach a note with our address, and hope that we'd get one back.
Several of us did - me too. I still have the note in "my archives". We were
ALL lucky that we never got burned by the NaOH solution.

02-26-2005, 04:17 PM

Størker Moe wrote:

> Don't try this at home, kids, and read the MSDS.

Yup, be careful. Fortunately I was. When I was 12 years old back in about
1966 we used NaOH, water and Al in glass Coca-Cola bottles to inflate
baloons, attach a note with our address, and hope that we'd get one back.
Several of us did - me too. I still have the note in "my archives". We were
ALL lucky that we never got burned by the NaOH solution.