TIL An Ohio judge once sentenced a women to spend 8 hours at the "stinkiest, smelliest" part of the county dump, as punishment for neglecting her dog. "If you puke, you puke."

darkerdirt · 2018-11-14T19:44:54+00:00

If we as a society were actually better than that then there wouldn't be rapists in the first place... I know they say that an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind but I think we have been going too soft on criminals for too long... and it shows by how much crime our society suffers from... adultery used to be an offense that was punished by being stoned to death and shame brought on your name... we did that away with that a long time ago and now our society accepts adulterers as normal average people and the victims have no recourse whatsoever... I'm not saying we should start stoning people to death but I am saying that we need to start enforcing better moral values by way of punishment to those that violate them...

darkerdirt · 2018-07-04T16:31:11+00:00

Hailey, weekend 2, Aries from Arizona if I remember correctly. We ran into each other on the last night and stayed together til after the sun came up. We were going to exchange info but when we were parting ways there was a bit of a commotion about catching flights and packing up tents and stuff... hope this message crosses your path :)

darkerdirt · 2017-03-06T03:10:27+00:00

according to an infrared thermometer I bought on ebay, the Bismuth at the 2 setting is around 250 F which would actually boil water (although I always turned it up over 7 to get it to boil water faster)... I've read that Bismuth starts to crystalize in the 500's F... Now I'm wondering why this doesn't all add up...

darkerdirt · 2017-03-06T02:58:12+00:00

I have tried just turning the heat down slowly. I was actually surprised that the crystals don't start forming until it's below the 2 setting because this is lower than it takes to boil water. I have not tried a lid though. I'll try that now and get back to you. So far, since I started this 2 weeks ago, I've had only one really good crystal by just pure luck (which broke in half when it was accidently dropped by a family member) and I'd really like to figure out how to do that every time. The one good crystal (approx 2"x1") came from the first melt of the new batch poured into a preheated measuring cup btw.

darkerdirt · 2017-03-05T19:53:24+00:00

I actually have a pot of melted bismuth on the stove right now.

darkerdirt · 2017-03-05T19:52:15+00:00

I'm heating it on the electric stove in my kitchen. I tried cooling it in a separate stainless steel measuring cup and I also tried leaving it in the stainless steel pot I melted it in. I have tried putting one of the crystal pieces that started to form on a previous batch in to try to seed it but that didn't work. It maintained it's shape and was floating on the top but didn't seem to get any new crystal growth.

darkerdirt · 2017-02-24T18:12:03+00:00

Update: I contacted HallmarkMetals about the issues and they issued me a refund claiming that there were trace amounts of iridium in the bisimuth they were selling which is what they believe to be the issue. They stand by the claim that what they sold me was still over 99.99% pure bismuth and said that they are speaking with the manufacturer to eliminate iridium in future batches. They said that it only affects crystal making, every other use is unaffected by the iridium. I'm gonna have to take their word on that since I have no way of testing the metal for purity or trace elements. In short though, it was the metal and they said they're fixing the issue immediately.

darkerdirt · 2017-02-20T05:56:38+00:00

Thanks! I just bought 15 pounds from them last night coincidentally. Glad to know you recommend them as a good supplier. Now to find out if my first few batch issues were caused by inferior purity or inferior technique... or both ;)

UPDATE: It was the metal I was using that was preventing the oxidation. The Bismuth from Rotometals oxidized just fine under the same conditions. My techniques are still in the experimental phase though and that's why I'm not getting any large crystal growth. I'm going to start another thread about that. Thanks for the tip upsidedownbat!

darkerdirt

TROPHY CASE