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made this out of a t8 size florescent bulb. first i'm gonna say that if you decide to try this be careful as there is supposed to be a small amount of mercury in those things. well if you have done any glass blowing than it's real easy to just twist off a piece. i liked the idea originally because all the glass test jars i see are 1 1/4 in. Not much bigger but that was part of the reason i liked the first post i saw on the parrot. using 3/4 in pipe means you hardly need any spirit. well there is one problem with glass that there isn't with copper. i think the issue i'm having is cause both tubes are so smooth that when there isn't enough room they will stick to each other. not much, but enough to throw off a hydrometer. think i'm gonna try and put some bumps going inward on it and see what that does.

All I can say is that even a small amount of mercury residue is too much, and how are you getting the mercury residue out? Hopefully not by rinsing it down the sink! Waste water plants can't pull it out as far as I know, and that just ends up in the streams, rivers, lakes, depending on your municipality.

Fluorescent lights have mercury vapour in them which means that it has touched every inch of the inside of that glass.
Please don't use it on anything your going to drink.

well from my research it doesn't seem like there is a lot of mercury in them. and that it's a safer mercury than organic, like whats in fish. and that ingesting it isn't as bad as breathing it. i used alcohol and salt to clean it first. then hit it with the torch. dumped it in my yard. no sewer in my neck of the woods. i still only tested some left over heads. I guess I'll do some more research before using it.

Mercury is an elemental. So any type is toxic, and did you know, the mercury from one thermostat is enough to contamanate Lake Michigan for ever? No amount is small enough.

Hopefully what you dumped in your yard never finds its way to your well water, or someone elses.

Sorry, don't mean to sound like an ass, but I take toxic disposal pretty seriously. Where I come from, what you did carries a $25000 fine.

From Wikipedia: Exposure to mercury can occur from breathing contaminated air, from eating foods that have acquired mercury residues during processing, from exposure to mercury vapor in mercury amalgam dental restorations, and from improper use or disposal of mercury and mercury-containing objects, for example, after spills of elemental mercury or improper disposal of fluorescent lamps.

Also from Wikipedia:
Fluorescent lamps
Fluorescent lamps contain mercury which is released when bulbs are broken. Mercury in bulbs is typically present as either elemental mercury liquid, vapor, or both, since the liquid evaporates at ambient temperature.[81] When broken indoors, bulbs may emit sufficient mercury vapor to present health concerns, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends evacuating and airing out a room for at least 15 minutes after breaking a fluorescent light bulb.[82] Breakage of multiple bulbs presents a greater concern. A 1987 report described a 23-month-old toddler who suffered anorexia, weight loss, irritability, profuse sweating, and peeling and redness of fingers and toes. This case of acrodynia was traced to exposure of mercury from a carton of 8-foot fluorescent light bulbs that had broken in a potting shed adjacent to the main nursery. The glass was cleaned up and discarded, but the child often used the area for play.[83]

ok ok maybe i didn't think things through. to be honest i didn't even know it had mercury in it till i was waiting for it to dry so i could torch it. then i looked it up. no we aint got well water out here, that's city. they just don't want to put sewer out here i guess.

Again, sorry if I come off as an ass.

Just want people to be safe.

DS

No...No problems, just made me feel guilty that's all. ha. no I should have looked it up before i started, i was just excited to get a test jar, the one i'm using is my old parrot that i made before i finished my first build. didn't know it would come out so hot!!!

If you have experience with glass blowing, you ought be able to make yourself a slick one outta an old coke bottle or something
Bet that would look awesome, a glass parrot. Hehe

hey that's a good idea, a bit to much for me though. something like that would have to be annealed in an oven. the only skills i have are left over from my drug days. anything a torch couldn't melt i couldn't make. although my brother does know a real glass blower. if nothing else i could prob some glass from him i could blow myself. hmmm glass parrot.

While doing some browsing in the local second hand store the other day I saw a number of thin clear glass vases, the kind they use for a single rose or other kind of flower. Some looked thin (small) enough for a decent test jar and only $.99 each.

yeah i found some at 99 cent store the other day. but one the opening was too small, bought the other one and it was too short. SHEESH. well did some more research on the fluorescent tubes and really can't find anything definitive. ( except we know mercury is bad )guess that means back to copper. just thought it would be cool to have a glass one, saw the bulb and realized it was the perfect size. oh well. $4 mistake. definitely made worse

How bout this?

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/glass-hy ... ar-12.html

brewhaus has them for 5.99 thats where i got mine recieved it 2 days after ordering http://www.brewhaus.com/Testing-Equipment-C102.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

tanks for the heads up guys. and Drunk-N-Smurf i was really close to buying that same one from midwest just the other day. but i didn't just go the diy route cause I'm cheap. well maybe ha. but no really I wanted one that my hydrometer just barely fit into. so i could test with a tiny bit of product. i guess it really doesn't matter anymore though cause i did just upgrade to a keg. before i could only do 3 gal runs. just haven't gotten used to the fact yet. still waiting on my first 15 gal ferment. takin tooo long

I'm DIY cheap too...check my posts - look for my diy clamp lol

For some reason I would rather spend ten times the cash failing to do it myself and saying, "well, I tried" than just buying the damn thing from the get go.

And besides, if some of us weren't diy cheap, there wouldn't be:
1) everlasting gasket
2) easy flange
3) home made stills

ha no sh!%. and i actually just made all you mentioned this build. did the copper valve this time to, and i think i was able to tweak it just enough to not drip. i must have made it too short or something first go, dripped a lot, but is sure as hell had MUCH better adjustment than my "lead free" brass valve.

The valve must be in the reflux sections?I haven't delved too much into there yet...just barely graduated from a water distiller to pot still.

well it's pretty old now. couple years. but i'm sure it still gets browsed. good idea. I don't trust brass. and like i said it regulates drops much better. well once i took the crappy rubber seals out of the brass valve. too cheap to go stainless for now. there actually not as bad as they were. still crazy though considering our uses don't regulate pressure. http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... lve+copper

oh oops had a few now. well with a pot still it means nothing really. but it's not bad reading for future builds.

Had a quick look for it after you mentioned it. Interesting.
Will read through it a little more thoroughly when I graduate from pot still primary school.

yeah once you get that bug.... man...i stopped for like a year. i"ll tell ya the bug hit me now as much as it did the first time. ...noting wrong with a pot still though, i'm a bourbon guy myself. i just want to get 95 outa one run. ha. I'll prob build a real pot still ( unlike my 3 qt crockpot setup i had )if i can't find a way to mix cuts good enough for some good whiskey.

Personally I'm a rum guy, so pot still is apparently best for what I want to make.

Lol, this topic is, well, it's a little off topic now ain't it?

Flourescent tubes get broken every day so no big deal as long as disposed of properly. If they were that dangerous, the EPA would have banned them years ago or insisted they were made in unbreakable glass! (food factories have to have ones that are coated to avoid falling glass contaminating any process line)

That said, a short lenth of that tube is not going to retain any mercury vapour when heated in a flame. The flourescent chemicals coating the tube may also be a hazard if evaporated and breathed in!

As suggested above, there are better tubes for this. Milking parlour pipelines, vases, laboratory glass tubing and lots of others, likely. Even buy a measuring cylinder and modify.

RAB

crashed pretty hard last night.yeah got pretty off topic, had a few drinks in me and i couldn't shut up. ha. yeah oliver90owner that's pretty much what i thought after little more research. saw somewhere something about the bulb absorbing the mercury, and then that the phosphor powder absorbs it. scientifically speaking i guess mercury doesn't really stick to anything but it's self. if i were going to be the only one drinking it i would trust it, but i won't be so...was thinking of getting some Pyrex tubes off ebay for a minute, ehhh think i'm just gonna stick with copper.

Although mercury is dangerous, it generally takes prolonged exposure for its toxicity to build up. We used to roll puddles of mercury around in our palms in some of our upper level chemistry classes. It can absorb into your skin, but it generally takes a while.

As far as bulbs, it tends to get baked into the glass. Mercury bonds with glass when heated, and tends to remain in the glass. America alone tends to release over 100 tons of mercury into the environment yearly. Natural disasters release even more into the environment than humans do. Here's a couple good links on the subject:

http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/p ... ercury.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_c ... /index.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow



Now that being said, would I take the risk of ingesting any? Most definitely not - especially considering that you're only really saving yourself a couple bucks. The plastic tube at Northern Brew are only like $5. Well worth paying for to avoid the risk of ingesting any of the nasty stuff that's inside an old light bulb.

mealstrom wrote:Now that being said, would I take the risk of ingesting any? Most definitely not - especially considering that you're only really saving yourself a couple bucks. The plastic tube at Northern Brew are only like $5. Well worth paying for to avoid the risk of ingesting any of the nasty stuff that's inside an old light bulb.

Unfortunately, those plastic units tend to cloud and disintegrate quite rapidly when exposed to high proof alcohol... Several members have had them crumble during the first stilling run they used them on... Go with glass instead...

Also see Rule #8 of The Rules We Live By...

Drunk-N-Smurf wrote:If you have experience with glass blowing, you ought be able to make yourself a slick one outta an old coke bottle or something
Bet that would look awesome, a glass parrot. Hehe

I talked to a local glass blower about doing a glass parrot but he didn't think the glass they work with would be heavy duty enough. I think he assumed it would be like a test beaker and therefore would need to handle high temps. I didn't want to get too specific so I just dropped the idea.

That would be cool though. Wish I knew how to do it. Could probably do some really neat stuff.

rad14701 wrote:Unfortunately, those plastic units tend to cloud and disintegrate quite rapidly when exposed to high proof alcohol... Several members have had them crumble during the first stilling run they used them on... Go with glass instead...

Also see Rule #8 of The Rules We Live By...

Oh wow, I hadn't read about that yet. Thanks for the heads up! I'll pick up a glass one. My plastic one broke anyway - I was wondering why it developed cracks after only a few months of use. I'm guessing maybe the alcohol might have weakened the plastic?

mealstrom wrote:

rad14701 wrote:Unfortunately, those plastic units tend to cloud and disintegrate quite rapidly when exposed to high proof alcohol... Several members have had them crumble during the first stilling run they used them on... Go with glass instead...

Also see Rule #8 of The Rules We Live By...

Oh wow, I hadn't read about that yet. Thanks for the heads up! I'll pick up a glass one. My plastic one broke anyway - I was wondering why it developed cracks after only a few months of use. I'm guessing maybe the alcohol might have weakened the plastic?

Exactly... And all those yummy plasticizers went right into your spirits...

the one i linked to from brewhaus was glass for 5.99 raineier has them for 8.00 im sure theres others out there not much to spend for some piece of mind