Posted on 09/06/2007 5:11:22 PM PDT by Last Dakotan
[Show me people dyng of Mercury poisoning? Been eating fish all my life, and I’m still here at 50+.]
There have been many, many RECORDED cases of people dying from mercury poisioning. The first stage is brain impairment. Be afraid, very afraid, and see a doctor immediately. A simple google search shows... http://tinyurl.com/25xzx
You are welcome.
My mother was an RN, used to bring home the mercury from broken thermometers for me to play with. I would heat it in a test tube with my Gilbert alcohol blow lamp, turn it into red mecuric oxide, then heat it in a sealed tube and convert it back again. I used it for decades to dissolve lead deposits in gun barrels, it is cool stuff, and I ain’t retarded yet. One of the first jobs I had in high school was casting fishing sinkers from scrap lead, later on I cast thousands of revolver bullets, and most of my toys were likely covered in leaded paint. I must have washed grease off my hands with leaded gasoline a thousand times. I’ll be 65 this coming Sunday, I reckon when I croak they’ll have to send a Hazmat team to get me, oh, well!
I won’t even speak of grubbing around in the junkyard, looking for brake shoes with some lining left, and sanding off the dirty part.
Something is going to kill me, someday, it won’t likely be fear.
Sometime in the 60s I had stock in a mercury mine somewhere in central California. It was a penny stock that took wild price swings; I think I even made a few bucks. Wonder if that outfit has managed to survive in Kali.
Yep, a little cork at one end, fill the barrel with mercury, let it sit, pour it back into the bottle.
Then a bit of #9* on a brush and the barrel is lead-free. The mercury in the bottle gets pretty dirty with lead but you can use the same 20 ml or so for years.
*Hoppes #9 used to have nitrobenzene in it, which made it a much better cleaner than now. Nitrobenzene is of course much too dangerous for us civilians to handle.
Are you kidding? the Kali’s are worried about cows farting... and you want to go off about Hg risk assessment? In this day and age, if it’s a natural resource, the government has a way to steal it away, for your own good ofcourse....you do understand don’t you...don’t you...don’t you?
While that was probably not a good idea, and we didn't realize how toxic mercury was at that time, it seems like everything is fear and over-reaction now.
Geez, just clean it up with a broom, and a mop and bucket, and rinse the implements thoroughly with a good detergent afterwards.
They act like the tiny bit of mercury in a thermometer is the end of the world. Next time I break a thermometer or a CFB I'm going to hyperventilate in terror and call Homeland Security.
We did too until a fellow student had a serious allergic reaction.
[Yep I must be thoroughly mercury contaminated. My dad brought a small vial of that home from work one day, and we had great fun with it, running it all over a glass plate with a magnet underneath.]
What was the purpose of the magnet? Mercury is NOT magnetic!
I have played with mercury as a kid. I worked in electronics and with lead acid batteries. I used HF with no eye protection. I did a bunch of stupid thing. Does that make them safer?
Nooooooo.
Wuss. I think I'll go break one for old time's sake! YEA!!! :) :)
HF burns are very painful
I can remember an experiment our high school coach turned science teacher tried to perform.
He had heard that the atmosphere would support x mm of mercury (I'm not sure how many). He began the experiment by pouring from a bottle of Hg into a graduated cylinder and was going to measure.
Well, he had emptied about half of the plastic container of Hg into the graduated cylinder, and the bottom of the graduated cylinder broke out and Hg poured all over the table and onto the floor. This was in the mid-60s and so far as I know, the janitors swept it up with brooms, cloths or whatever.
This football coach was not the brightest light at my high school.
I stopped using Hoppes #9. Now I use Ed’s Red.
Are you sure? I've seen thermometers that had max/min readings that you would use a magnet to reset.
I was exposed to all of that and more when I was a kid. I had a full up chemistry lab (not a simple Gilbert lab) where I worked with mercury, lead, potassium permanganate, benzene, toluene, synthesized picric acid (I did neutralize it pretty quickly) and a host of other inorganic and organic compounds. In college I had more benzene and other solvents pass over my hands in lab work than anyone could imagine and I also assisted in research work where I mixed and handled bone cement where the polymerizing agent was supposed to be carcinogenic. I’m 57 now, in great health and not a tumor to be found. A little mercury from a thermometer is no reason for a huge overreaction.
Good Lord, a decent cow fart smells ever so better than a piss filled NYC phone booth! I will walk around in a barnyard barefooted, no way will I go to NYC and make a phone call, barefooted!
Mark
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