Burning Petard wrote:Benzene? Me, I looked for water marks on stamps with Carbon tetrachloride--another substance very bad for health, but at least not so flammable. On the other hand, I also worked a little later in a print shop where benzene was regularly used to clean the ink on the presses, and also used to fuel the ubiquitous zippo lighters.
snailgate
But that was before benzene caused cancer.
when I was in college i worked in a lab where it was the spcvent of choice; we wiped down the tabels,e ven cleaned our hands with benzene; lucky it didn't cause cancer until years later.
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts
Acetone is still widely avail. and far less hazardous than benzene.
Carbon tetrachloride is completely non-flammable. It used to be used in fire extinguishers. Halon is chemically similar and is used in fire extinguishers for specialized applications.
In his memoir "uncle tungsten" Oliver Sacks describes buying hydro fluoric acid at the chemical shop when he was a child. Where I worked we used it as an etchant and you were required to have special training and certification to use it.
I still recall vividly a chem lesson from when I was 13: the chem teacher a had photo of some poor guy's hands from an accident with hydrofluoric acid. The message was: don't mess with this shit! - although Mr Marsen didn't quite put it like that. He was my chem teacher for 4 years and was largely the reason I turned it into a career. But I never fucked around with HF.
