#1 Science Forum For Lab Technicians

I have the same problem with two different brands of ammonium thiocyanate...

Edit - I read one of the SDSs wrong. They both say Hazardous but not DG, but the confusion in the above post still stands.

Hi all,
I have 2 containers of aluminium potassium sulfate (potash alum). Same chemical formula, same molecular weights just two different manufacturers/suppliers. One is ChemSupply, one is westlab. ChemSupply SDS date is 2023-11-10 (I'm assuming 10th Nov). Westlab SDS date is 13/10/23. ChemSupply ...

Hi Bigmack! I was back on 20th as well. Students are back on Wednesday next week. We've got a mix of full staff meetings (child protection, plans for the year, meet the new staff type things) but mostly as a non-teaching person I can get on with what needs doing.... today that is chemical stocktake ...

I got some from Wiltronics in 2024 and haven't had any complaints. Sometimes you have to have the collar not fully open to get a good flame (for bunsens in general, not necessarily the new ones).

Injet ink Runs when wet , so I'd not want to use that over Laser .


The heavy duty labels are waterproof and tear proof. I'd say 99% of our dropper bottles are the 50ml ones. I like the 21/sheet for those but the 21/sheet are only available from Avery (from what I can work out) but 24/sheet is ...

That excitement over finding a printer that worked was short lived - it hasn't happened again since.... but now I am curious - what size labels do you all prefer? I generally use the small (21 labels/sheet) but I have discovered that the heavy duty labels come in the extra small (24/sheet) for ...

bigmack wrote: 01 Dec 2025, 09:01

RosalieL wrote: 28 Nov 2025, 10:34 Sadly we didn't have enough student elect physics for next year

That's crazy to hear Rosalie.

We're a fairly small school and for some reason it's not a particularly academic cohort coming into year 11 next year. Hopefully the following year will have more seniors choosing science subjects.

Thanks bigmack! I'll revisit this if I ever get around to trialling it... Sadly we didn't have enough student elect physics for next year so we won't be needing to do a cloud chamber for a while...

If anyone doesn't have a cloud chamber, I found this when looking up things for science week. I haven't tried it out for myself yet so if you give it a go let me know if it's any good!

https://spookyactionbook.com/2012/10/15 ... -detector/

Big W sells normal metal slinkies for $5. It's not worth my time to fix them. I store them in their boxes (for now - I know one day they will fall apart). I don't know if that makes the kids look after them better, knowing they have to get them back in the box or not, but for now it works. They also ...

Looks pretty similar to what I currently have

How do you all store your spring balances?

I agree - after reading the info yesterday, there seems to have been a lot of hysteria over not much!

Hey all! So, I was just talking to our prep teacher about the coloured sand. There has been mixed responses to it with the ACT pretty much shutting down the education system for 2 days and others schools just "throwing it out" and carrying on with life. I'll be honest and say I haven't read any of ...

Has anyone used something other than an egg for this prac?

Ah, I see... what about a mini grid cover slip that you could put on an ordinary cavity slide? Western histological sell them for $10 each (I just looked them up to see if such a thing exists).

look up mini grid slides or slide grids. I haven't looked at what the prac entails but these are cheaper and may show/do what the teacher is wanting to achieve.

I think it's like when you have copper sulfate anhydrous which is 159.6g/mol but copper sulfate pentahydrate is 249.68g/mol. If you make up a 5% solution of copper sulfate anhydrous by weight (5g CuSO4/95gH2O) you will have a different molarity compared to a 5% solution of pentahydrate (5gCuSO4.5H2O ...

Hi all, not sure if this is the right thread.

I have a bunch of equipment here (microscopes, transformers, ray boxes, etc) that is in need of some serious repairs. It is well out of my ability.

Does anyone know someone I can contact for some repair work?
Located Western Sydney.

TIA


you ...

We don't use Cobalt (in any form) at all anymore, I've removed it all due to it's environmental and health affects. Asked people to find alternatives and surprisingly when you ask them to find a less nasty chemical they always do. Just have to push them out of their old ways. I


Hi Anna ...