Gilded

Highest currency my lower back! Two GBP isn't even 1 Kuwait denar.

 

r1dermon, you mean we Europeans overpay? Since about at every cool/useful chemical in Skylighter it says USA shipping only.

Heh, as I said I have no samples yet (since I'm aiming for >99% lab/display grade ones), but I'm most likely getting tungsten and radium soon, so yes, soon I will have radioactive stuff in my collection.

 

Edit: Oh, forgot to mention that I also collect gemstones and cool minerals; going to get a sample of torbernite soon ( http://www.mindat.org/min-3997.html ). They are usually quite radioactive.

http://www.kno3.com is good if you're looking for a company in UK. Also, some eBay chemical sellers are located in UK (as I have said about thrice within the last two days ).

Hmm, now that I think of it, maybe ceramic media like aluminum oxide is the best for not-so-hard materials.

"glass powder can kill you!" Especially if it's from uranium marbles.

 

When it comes to ball mill balls, I think chrome plated steel balls are simply the best. Though if you're grinding corrosive chemicals, chrome's not too good, but if you're planning to eat the stuff you are grinding (spice mix or something), I think chrome-steel is a good if not the best option.

"Dont use chlorates they are very unstable and the stuff that makes bombs if done wrong."

 

Well what's the fun if you can't handle unstable chemicals? Anyway, I think I should get myself some KNO3 since it's relatively easy to get and it's used for so many nice things.

Heh, an electric screwdriver. I never thought of that. But I think I'll still order a ball mill from unitednuclear.com or such (if they even ship them to foreign countries >:/ ). And any way, it's hard for me to make a ball mill of my own because I got no balls.

 

...metal balls, that is. Though I could probably buy them somewhere.

Yeah, milling separately and using wooden tools is probably an intelligent thing to do unless you want to collect pieces of your ball mill or pieces of your hand from the wall.

Dammit people, radiation is nothing to be worried about... or maybe it is. Just don't keep too strong gamma-stuff near you, and DON'T, I mean DON'T keep alpha-radiators near aluminum or beryllium. They kick off neutrons, and neutron radiation is something not to be played with. Beta and alpha radiators aren't too dangerous by themselves, just don't eat or inhale them.

 

Ways to own radioactive elements legally (at least in most countries):

Uranium, thorium, radon and such - Uranium or thorium ore (radon etc. as decay products). Uranium is also found in all sorts of old things; they put it in marbles, other glass items and even plates. A good way of getting thorium (as already mentioned) are the lantern mantles, just don't pull a David Hahn.

 

Radium, promethium - Antique glow-in-the-dark watch hands

 

Americium, neptunium - Smoke alarm ionization chamber (the little gold matrix thingie)

 

Plutonium - Heh, this is a real tough one, but a wonderful addition to your collection; the mineral unofficially called "muromontite" (beryllium-uranium allanite). Uranium kicks off alpha, that smacks into a beryllium atom, which kicks off a neutron, which then is captured by a uranium atom; forming an atom of Pu. As I mentioned, this sort of samples are not the fun kind, because of the neutrons that escape the mineral.

Yeah, it sucks in that sense major time. But hey, there's always kno3.com and some eBay chemical sellers are in Europe.

Hmm, working better = different kind of flame? Have you tried concentrating both and seeing which one combusts faster, that's the primary property of BP for me.

If someone in the European area is interested in collecting elements, check out seltenerden.de. Also, eBay is a good source (though as Lance stated, they won't sell "cool" elements like sodium anymore ). A good page to check out where elements are used and what their properties are is http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable , the home of the real periodic table (yes, a wooden table with elements in it), and it's the page that inspired me to get a collection of my own.

Yep, unitednuclear.com sure is great (sorry if I'm overadvertising ), and their products are almost a reason to spend a year as an exchange student in USA.

Lance, if you asked me, I picked them because I'm getting them for free.

 

"United nuclear also sells is."

 

Damn that's a good site! I would probably have spent all my money on their products... If I didn't live here in Finland (they don't deliver radioactive isotopes and chemicals to foreign countries). Getting ANYTHING from USA is a real pain in the arse these days.

I think jsatan means that you should dissolve them into water and boil the water until the C12H22O11 (table sugar; sucrose) and KNO3 crystallize. Or then he means completely something else.

 

By the way, why don't you try potassium chlorate (KClO3) and sugar in a 50/50 ratio. It gives off a nice purple flame and quite a bit of smoke. Or then my chlorate was just horribly impure.

Mercury... Hmm. You could break a mercury switch and take it from there. It's certainly an element that's rather hard to get, since it's so dangerous to the environment. But if someone has it, I bet they're just happy if someone will take it off their hands. Talking of hands, if you want to handle liquid metal with your bare hands, I recommend gallium, as I already did in the cesium-thread.

 

PS. I think there was a mercury fountain at a university in Spain or something.

I think a meter of magnesium ribbon is about 1£ or something (at most stores).

"saying it was too advanced for my level"

 

What a boring person your teacher is. Or maybe he didn't just know it himself.

Dammit! Every single time you come up with a good abbreviation it's already taken:

 

http://www.mambaye.be/htdocs-fr/traduction2/main.htm

 

"Eveil à la nature, au Sport et à la culture"

"it`s not a viable energy source (YET)."

 

You're right, but the Japanese are putting together a fusion reactor, I think. And when it comes to fusion bombs... whoopee. I've seen a video clip of a cannon launched atomic mortar that I think is about 18 000 kilotons. The Castle Bravo h-bomb had 20 MEGAtons. And the 18 000 kiloton bomb looks like it could wipe out a medium-sized town with ease.

That oxygen stream sounds like fun.

 

YT, with NIB you mean Neodymium Iron Boron? Because that's what NdFeB means.

Now that were talking about graphite, anyone know where to get pyrolytic graphite? You can make it levitate with four square shaped N40 NdFeB-magnets.

Well, why don't we found ENASC (European Nitric Acid Sniffers Club).

By the way, for those who don't know, cesium is a really important element because of it's use in atomic clocks (1 second = exactly 9,192,631,770 complete oscillations of a cesium-133 atom).

The hobby of the noble; collecting every naturally occurring element. As a hobby it's an expensive one, but hey, atleast there's not a steady flow of new ones like there is with stamps, trading/gaming cards and such.

 

I must admit that I have just started and don't really have any elements but my radium and tungsten sample are on their way. Any fellow collectors?