Where to buy correct Acetone?

https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalo...MI8rXe1ab83gIViAOGCh0txA1WEAAYASAAEgKhlfD_BwE

Of course it's ridiculously expensive research grade...

 

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That's cheap.

 

Played with mercury too. When printing photos that Stopbath could take your head off. Also exploded twice with my friend and once singed his eyebrows.

 

Are you CERTAIN you did the right dilution? Stop bath is highly concentrated as purchased. "Acetic acid on steroids." They sold 28%, which itself needed to be further diluted, and Glacial Acetic Acid, which smelled like it should be dissolving the glass.

 

Why do you want the toluene?

 

My one and only bottle of glacial acetic acid was Kodak-brand. I wouldn't have it in the house now, out of consideration for my daughter, who hates pickles.

 

I believe it's slightly superior to xylene -- I'm not sure it's actually less toxic, but it appears to be no more toxic. It's slightly more volatile, so less wait for it to evaporate. And there's some leftover desire from my childhood as a chemistry hobbyist, when I was trying to make some aromatic amines to do diazo reactions. Xylene is a mix of isomers, toluene is more or less pure. (I was experimenting with benzene, because this was before we learned how carcinogenic it was. Hoping my exposure was too limited to matter.)

So, mostly, "I want it because I always wanted it". And I also react badly when a vast, faceless authority tells me I shouldn't be allowed to get it any more.

 

I'm an old darkroom rat myself. At one time I use to work in a darkroom that was in the old Custom House in News Orleans. And yes we did have rats (the 4-legged kind) in the darkroom as well. I never considered using any of the photographic processing chemical to clear coins. They all seem a bit harsh for coins, ever though I had my hands in the stuff also daily. I did try recovering silver from the fix. Got a little bit. But it wasn't worth the effort. So Kurt, I with you, I'm not shy around chemicals.

 

Before you begin applying all of these solvents and chemicals to your good coins, practice and experiment on circulated 'junk silver' coins, take notes and photos of before and after condition, type of contaminant, type of solvent used, etc. - be thorough and document your results - better to be sure than sorry when working on your valuable coins

 

"We didn't have no slick exotic stuff" - V. Kurt, you surprise me.

 

Thanks for the knowledge !!

 

I get the Klean brand acetone. You can buy it from Home Depot or Wal-Mart. Xylene works well, too, but I always do acetone first. Xylene I use if I feel that there's still more crud or whatnot on the coin.

 

...and good luck getting Sigma, or any large distributor, to sell to an individual. That went out in the 1970s, if not earlier. Of course, if you form your own company...

 

There you go... Create a numismatic "research" firm. In many states you can create an LLC online in under a half hour.

 

I live here in Sunny Calif. and it's true that Xylene is banned in our state. However, I bought a quart of Xylene on Ebay and they nicely shipped it out to me.
We can still buy Acetone but who knows if they will ban it in the near future.

 

That's okay, all ideas FROM California are banned in my state.

I've got an idea for California's environment problems. Create a database of all households. I understand you already have that in some form. Next, send Letters of Exemption to every one, asking if the head of household can trace his or her CA lineage back to the date of California Statehood. Then, have those verified. Next step - send every remaining household a randomly selected color chip (green, red, yellow, 1/3 of each) in a peel open mailer. Every household getting a green one can stay, every household getting a yellow must move out of California within two years, and every one getting a red better hire an out-of-state realtor TODAY, and move back into a real state! Bulldoze every newly abandoned house.

VOILA! Problem solved.

BTW, I've been to the Bay Area. Very pretty. Even going over the hump from Muir Woods to the Marin cliffside developments. But too many people too mashed together, dude. Makes people go silently crazy, obviously.

 

Only after a nite of hard partying with wicked damsels.........

 

So you mean the OTHER kind of "wicked damsels" as opposed to ex-wives? My pre-first-marriage date is now 33 years back. Getting ... hard ... to ... remember. Need ... to ... get ... out ... old ... glamour ... portfolio. Ah, yep THERE they are!

 

I can agree with that, but to me (and maybe it is just me) toluene STINKS. I find the odor rather unpleasant. I can get used to it, but I'd rather wait the slightly longer time for the xylene to evaporate. And if the acetone works it trumps the toluene for odor and xylene for evaporating. So after distilled water, Acetone is my first choice solvent. I also believe toluene is more flammable than xylene, but less so than acetone.

 

I agree that the odor of toluene is dreadful. At my co-op I worked with toluene, isopropanol, heptane, acetone, xylene, mineral spirits, and petroleum distillates. Toluene had the worst odor by far in my opinion.

What’s odd is nearly everyone else I worked with at my co-op had generally positive opinions of toluene’s odor. What’s really odd is that everyone I worked with HATED the smell of butanol, but I could barely smell it (I could only smell a faint almond-like odor). It’s interesting to see how different people react to different odors.