Monday, April 27, 2015

Extreme wood bending with ammonia

Bending wood with ammonia is not really DIY, but I show the process, which is extremely effective.  There is also a commercial product that is pre-treated flexible wood, which hardens after being clamped in the desired shape.

http://boingboing.net/2011/05/06/inventables.html
Hmm, it seems the product may no longer be available -- I can't find it at Inventables.
https://www.inventables.com

Pre-treated flexible wood product patent:
https://www.google.com/patents/US5360631


Sunday, April 19, 2015

Distilling pure anhydrous ammonia

I have a few upcoming projects that require anhydrous ammonia. In this video, I show how to distill it from "ammonia water" similar to common glass cleaner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birch_reduction
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/ammonia-pressure-temperature-d_361.html



Thursday, April 9, 2015

Magnetic Propulsion

This is a neat little demo that shows how permanent magnets can be used to create propulsion along a conductive copper track