[TheForge] Re: Pickling solutions

[Mike Spencer]

> Where do you get phosphoric acid? How much does it cost?

You should be able to find a supplier of industrial chemicals that
carries it in any large city.

I got my present supply in Halifax, NS, (a seaport but not really a
"large" city) from a weird little business that sold craft supplies
(foam balls, wicker, tole paints, glitter -- you get the picture); a
modest line of laboratory chemicals; and bulk phosphoric acid which
the proprietor manufactured in a rig out in the parking lot.  He's
since gone out of business.

It cost something like C$80 for 5 gallons some years ago.  It comes in
a syrupy concentrated form and is diluted quite a lot for pickling
iron.  I just forget off hand how much.  I vaguely recall that it
comes as 80% and you dilute it to 20% or 30%.

It's not particularly dangerous but then, I have no idea to what
extent pathological litigatiousness and the hysteria over "terrists"
has influenced the willingness of companies to sell the commonest,
most ordinariest chemicals to non-institutional customers.  I ordered
(and received) some truly dangerous stuff -- white phosphorus,
metallic sodium, hydrofluoric acid, nux vomica -- when I was a
teenager.  I imagine I'd have a lot of trouble buying that stuff
anywhere today.

- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^

--