Chemicals in Texas

[erose]

Anyone here in Texas know a distributor for chemicals? I want to mix my own Pyrochrome and need Pyrogalol and the other stuff. I'm in Austin and internet searches are not getting me anywhere.

[Jem]

HI

I posted this link in another thread somewhere when someone was looking for dichromates, it may help in your search.

http://www.hyperdeath.co.uk/chemicals/organic.php

Cheers

Jem

[BobH]

Photographers Formulary?

[Joe Farina]

Photographers Formulary?

That might be the best approach.

[Ed Wesly]

Yep, it's a consistent place to get what we need. You might be able to find the same stuff elsewhere cheaper, but it depends on the price/time trade off.

I have been dealing with them for over 30 years, got them to advertise in the late, great holosphere, the Advocate of Holographic Art, Science and Technology, and that opened the door for the JD and other kits, etc.

What bugs me is that you might have to fill out DEA forms, that's right, Drug Enforcement Agency, for some thing. I just had to do that for potassium permanganate and PBQ! I guess they might be usable in the manufacture of crack cocaine or methamphetamine, anyone here know for sure? Also they limit the amount you can buy at once, like only 10 grams, which is only 5 liters of CWPBQ2 bleach, which doesn't last long.

Even sodium hydroxide, commonly know as lye, or Drano in the commercial sense, needs a DEA form! And try looking for Drano or the equivalent in the grocery store, the powder is no longer available, only liquid drain cleaners, which are not only a saturated solution of NaOH, which could have been usable, but they added sodium hypochlorite to it, so that it would destroy any organics. What kind of a world are we living in?

[erose]

Thanks everybody. Looks like Photographers Formulary may be the ticket. But I am blown away by how much more chemicals cost than 20 years ago. I've been in a holographic time bubble since about 1992. I have notes saying I bought Pyrogallol for less than $20 in 1986. From those of you who have done the math, are the pre-mixed packs a good value? I had intended to set up for mixing my own and have been collecting equipment: scales, graduated cylinders, glass ware, etc.

Oh and thanks for the safety info. I'm very aware of how harmful some of this stuff can be and take that very seriously. I will be looking at all the alternatives as I go.

[BobH]

I was told by someone very reliable in such matters that PBQ could be used to make Extacy, but it never was. Those against the DEA War Against Citizens chose to include it in lists of possible chemical formulas for making that substance to swamp the system with decoy formulas. So now the idiocratic bureaucracy monitors holographers using obsolete (or in Ed's case, traditional) processing techniques. We have Nixon, Reagan and Junior to thank for that.

[Dinesh]

What kind of a world are we living in?

We're living in a world where chemistry students no longer do chemistry experiments. I had a physics student from Columbia University doing a minor in chemistry who actually didn't know how to filter a compound because she had never actually handled chemicals! We're living in a world where Dihydrogen Monoxide is actually on a list of banned chemicals in some California counties. We're living in a world where people think that the mercury in fishes are actually the element, as opposed to the salts of Hg. I guess the days when kids would make stink bombs in the chemy lab to annoy the teachers has long gone!

which are not only a saturated solution of NaOH, which could have been usable, but they added sodium hypochlorite to it

Wouldn't this be more dangerous? Wouldn't the hypochlorite release chlorine in the presence of acids? If I'm right, I just hope nobody throws vinegar into the sink, then attempts to throw hypochlorite-laced Drano down the same sink. I got a lungful of pure chlorine many moons ago and it wasn't pleasant!

[holorefugee]

Or, taking sodium hypochlorate and mixing it with amonia...