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Making Bakelite Part 1

🕑 Added 2017-04-19 23:55:43 +0000 UTC

Comments

Nile Red

Can you send me a message and outline how you made the galalith? What i found was pretty limited. Just separate the casein, dry it and potentially soak it in formaldehyde?

Silviu T

Yeah I set out to make bakelite and instead I made galalith. BTW galalith would be a nice way to combine your videos about polymers with the one about milk chemistry.

Nile Red

mmm the nice taste of phenol and formaldehyde

Silviu T

Considering that at the time I was winning national awards for high school chemistry, they didn't really care about the ceiling. My mother did care about some cheese that she had out on the table when that happened and which she had to throw away because cheese with a coating of phenol and formaldehyde is not a good meal.

Nile Red

Im not sure. it might bubble even more

Nile Red

im sure your parents were super happy

Silviu T

Bakelite was how I learned about exothermic reactions, and superheated fluids. :) I was about 13 or 14 and I was doing this in my parent's kitchen in a test tube using the gas stove as a heat source. Long story short, most of the bakelite ended up on the ceiling in a lovely spotted pattern.

Dawnbandit

What would happen if you put the Bakelite under a vacuum while it was curing?

Paul Grodt

Exactly, it looks like many of the aspects are to enable doing a large batch, and to enable it to gravity-flow directly into a prepared mold.

Nile Red

Let me know if you decide to build it! You can probably make it way less complicated too.

Paul Grodt

Hey!!!! You did the thing I was asking about, and it came out AMAZING! Thank you!! I don't suppose you came across details about the Bakelizer in your research, did you? I'm a little tempted to build a small one. Looking at the photos and scanning through the patents I've read so far, I suspect it's just a pressure vessel with feedthroughs for stirring, heating, and possibly adding additional ingredients midway through the process. If so, I think I can handle it by adding some overpressure rings to my vacuum setup. But I'll keep reading.

The Gayest Person on Patreon

We've all been there. Taco Bell is in business for a reason. Bakelite wasn't phased out of use it was just used as filler in Doritos Locos Tacos.

Nile Red

ha no problem. Also yeah, reading that over, it makes me sound like a toddler who eats anything.

The Gayest Person on Patreon

"If somebody randomly gave me this and said nothing, I'd probably try to eat it." Hahaha at least you're honest! I really enjoy your videos as they fill in a LOT of gaps in my organic chem knowledge especially with the electron stuff included in the equations. That helps more than you may think!