Tuesday night – retro experiments

Nice, lazy evening with Diana and gave it home. Well gabe grilled veggies on the grill I went in and did an experiment I hadn't done in years. I picked up some calcium hypochlorite pool shock at the pool store the other day. And I also bought some brake fluid which is mostly ethylene glycol. I mixed the two and 30 seconds later there was a 3 foot, orange fire. Just like when I was a kid. Sorry I didn't take any pictures. Heres another kids version of the same thing i found on google. ( please be safe with this one.. The fumes are dangerous as is the fire )

 

After dinner, Gabe found a cool Twitter post about an experiment that I also done as a kid. It involves tying a cotton string around the glass bottle, soaking it in alcohol, and lighting it on fire. After it burns out, you quickly dunk it in cold watr. If you're lucky…… As we were…. the bottle will break cleanly near where the string was. All you need to do then is sand the edges and you've got a pretty cool drinking glass. Heres how it went

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Then a quick dunk in the water and 'clink'

Nothing like a little father/son bonding over chemistry nostalgia

Nite all, nite sam

-me

 

One thought on “Tuesday night – retro experiments”

  1. lol…. I did the chlorine and brake fluid thing when I was a kid too!

    And tennis ball or potato canons… initially with alcohol, then later I spiked it with gasoline, which was a little dangerous….

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