[zaphraud]

Uhhh the less the better; saving stuff you've already used but why stock extra stuff you might not?

Chemicals to always have around? The ones you need for safety reasons!
Baking soda, for its ability to render a wide variety of spills safer rapidly.
Whatever else, depending on what you're doing and using.

Hmmm.. What else? Get a removable shower head, the kind with a flexible hose. You may need to point the thing at your eyes someday, and a genuine eyewash in a house would look a little funny and require much more plumbing work.

[408]

why stock extra stuff you might not?

Wait till all that is legal to possess is baking soda and vinegar and ask that question again....

[zaphraud]

why stock extra stuff you might not?

Wait till all that is legal to possess is baking soda and vinegar and ask that question again....

I find it a reasonable intellectual challenge to look at the problem from the opposite direction:
1. Look at the list of chemicals on the FDA's Generally Regarded As Safe list, and start from there.
2. Add to this a list of items approved or generally accepted to come in contact with food handling equipment as it is used, food, etc. Aluminum foil, pyrex ware, etc.
3. What can one make or invent that will be useful using that as starting materials?
4. Add unusual conditions, such as exposure to microwaves, UV illumination, or immersion in rocks as a catalyst, etc, and watch the list expand further.

This is also a decent way to reduce the odds of developing synthetic techniques that will fall victim to environmental legislation or industrial shortages.

[billnotgatez]

zaphraud -

Are you ready to submit to unannounced searches for having more than 3 flasks?

[hobobot]

As far as problems with authorities go, I'm sure there are some people on the forums with bad stories.
But as for me, I have bought some very very questionable items online and from suppliers. Not to mention several dozen pieces of glassware. I'm probably on every watch-list there is....And I still haven't had any problems.
Just don't scare paranoid people. The only place I talk about chemistry is with my professor or here.  If you tell a bunch of random people about your experiments you will have problems.

[pfnm]

Hi,

I also intend to set up a lab at my residential address. It will be limited to conducting similar experiments to those we do at Uni.

I am studying second-year analytical and physical chemistry and third-year organic chemistry.

Each class only offers 3 hours a week in the lab at Uni, and marks are allocated based on performance in the lab. I want to therefore, practice handling and using certain reagents and glassware, so that my marks are not affected.

It's also a bit disappointing having to rush through our Prac classes, without being able to devise or modify the pracs, or devise our own experiments.

I wonder, would it be a good idea to contact the local police, and notify them of what I'm doing? Mostly I am just practicing titrations, but I will also do some organic syntheses such as generation of p-nitroaniline. I certainly will not break the law.

I don't want my glassware damaged or to be arrested in some kind of raid- perhaps it's better to let the authorities know, such that if someone becomes suspicious the police are aware of my lab and what I'm doing?
Or is this naive?

[zaphraud]

zaphraud -

Are you ready to submit to unannounced searches for having more than 3 flasks?

I'm ready to counter-sue when nothing illicit is found (including expensive labwares), and no reasonable suspicion has existed for a search during this century. But nevertheless, I would prefer not to be searched anyways. I don't see how my advice is inconsistent with that.

As for my home, let's just say that when you have a wife prone to stupid freak-outs and spells of insane bitchiness and lying, you can expect the distant father-in-law to call the cops every once in a while anyways, so it pays to live a clean, violence-free life regardless of ones passion for chemistry. Thats really the only way to have the cops apologizing for the visit at the end of the incident. Catch my drift? I have a family now.

[billnotgatez]

i am afraid you do not understand the Texas USA legal system

[408]

zaphraud -

Are you ready to submit to unannounced searches for having more than 3 flasks?

I'm ready to counter-sue when nothing illicit is found (including expensive labwares), and no reasonable suspicion has existed for a search during this century. But nevertheless, I would prefer not to be searched anyways. I don't see how my advice is inconsistent with that.

What english-speaking free country are you in?  I sure can't think of one. Be prepared to be bled financially dry for having the audacity to stand up for your rights.  I have never seen an instance of seized chemicals returned to their owner, regardless of use, fourth amendment(or whatever analogue in other countries) notwithstanding.

[zaphraud]

zaphraud -

Are you ready to submit to unannounced searches for having more than 3 flasks?

I'm ready to counter-sue when nothing illicit is found (including expensive labwares), and no reasonable suspicion has existed for a search during this century. But nevertheless, I would prefer not to be searched anyways. I don't see how my advice is inconsistent with that.

What english-speaking free country are you in?  I sure can't think of one. Be prepared to be bled financially dry for having the audacity to stand up for your rights.  I have never seen an instance of seized chemicals returned to their owner, regardless of use, fourth amendment(or whatever analogue in other countries) notwithstanding.

You're just making my point for me. My advice was to start with the FDA's list of "generally approved as safe", and try to develop interesting techniques with these materials and any other things that are common household items - I did not mean go out and by a drum of some exotic aroma compound that everybody else only gets in 1mL quantities either. I meant that there is a hell of a lot of chemistry still waiting to be discovered, that is accessible with what the typical person already has lying around in their home.

If you don't find any interest in the anomalies of microwave chemistry, another fine place to look for findings that may even be publishable someday is in the field of nanoassembly - you can make your own colloidal silver, and then attempt to stick things to it, like cysteine maybe? From there, use your imagination - just don't eat the stuff. You can make lots of cool color changes this way, if you want something very interesting to watch.

etc etc..

[billnotgatez]

my point is that just having glassware can get you in trouble in certain locations - FDA or no FDA
and i mean in USA

[billnotgatez]

zaphraud  et al

http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=42156.0

look at the entry for Reply #29 on: Today at 11:08:55 AM  which is 20110809

[Matt.-.101]

Hows England doing in the whole 'death of home chemistry' pandemic?
America sure sounds bad for you guys 
(Im new, it probably shows)

[godneal]

the two bovgest things you will be looked at for are drugs and boms.  as long as you dont make those two sibstances you cannot be prosocuted.  rest assured if they take your chems your not getting the back.  your glasswhere you should get back as long as some dick dosnt just throw the box on a shelf.

[BARAJAN]

Catsceo!!! I really jealous on your barvery, but one more thing I always heard that the sewage of labs must not inter to urban sewage, do you have think about it too?
(excuse me for my poor English  )