> > I wonder how many accidental poisonings occurred?
> A number, I would imagine, and especially in tight quarters. I got
> exposed to some briefly during the `40s when the paper wrapping on some
> decorative steel plate caught fire and the people nearest used a Carbon
> Tet extinguisher to put it out. Rather pungent as I recall, so it does
> provide some warning.
A carbon tet extinguisher? IIRC the trade name for that stuff was "Halon"...
> Also in that same era we used to degrease various components of
> Resnatron Radar jamming with carbon tet and acetone bare handed. No one
> thought a thing of it except for the way it degreased your hide!
Acetone. The one common solvent I hate to hell. It ripped apart the
supposedly-chemical-resistant gloves I was wearing while I was using it and
proceeded to cover my fingers in goop. Took me a week to get all the cack
off. "Chemical resistant" my left sock.
So what if I've chopped a year or so off my life expectancy? For that year
or so, I've had a lot more fun than some people twice my age... Including
making a "slugzapper" - a 150V low-current voltage source to keep the slugs
away from my Dad's flower bed :-)
Oh, then there was the time I "accidentally" made an EHT generator out of a
solenoid coil and a few diodes, transistors, etc... It was supposed to be an
LC oscillator...
Later.
--
Phil.
philpem_at_bigfoot.com
http://www.philpem.f9.co.uk/
Received on Thu Nov 08 2001 - 16:29:09 GMT