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20 Comments

1. re:
   gossip and rumors

   Entries into the Internet website called ‘wikipedia’ can be made by anybody for any purpose.

   I frequently find mis-information and dis-information on wikipedia.
   After I correct the false entry/entries to align with established facts and evidence, I return to consistently find my corrections over-written by ‘anonymous’ users.
   And consistently, the over-writes reflect trendy ‘political correct’ opinions… or they destroy valid sources disagreeing with trendy ‘political correct’ opinions.

   Using that bunch of vague gossip and rumors as a reference?
   In my experience, that is a recipe for failure.

   As a professional editor for several decades, my job is verifying claims by authors prior to publishing an article or book.
   The Internet has no such verification in place to guarantee the truth of any claims. Anybody can say anything.
   Indeed, remember the old joke:
   “I saw it on the Internet, so it must be true.”
   Computer programmers have another joke:
   “Garbage in, garbage out.”

   1. LargeMarge,

      I agree that Wikipedia has issues with political correctness, however we are talking chemistry and they do a good job with providing good information on uses of chemicals/compounds, production and history that you can’t necessarily find in textbooks. Also, it is NOT the only source I use.

   2. I agree Marge, that’s why my physical library is priceless!
      All my wife’s and my own college textbooks ( biology, chemistry and engineering) along with foxfire, backwoods home, cookbooks & canning manuals, mechanical operation books. And all the physical tools to put the information to use and work!

      1. Wingfootjr,

         Can’t agree more on having physical books on hand. In part two of the article I mention two old books (one from the late 1800’s) that are a wealth of prepper knowledge.

   3. Couldn’t agree more with LargeMarge.

      We no longer teach our children from articles in LEFTist- pedia. It is an extension of the nazi party propaganda ministers.

      We were doing a Bible study and my son looked up babylon and woo-la. Left wing American hating bias.

      3/4 of the document was about babylon – albeit slanted towards the left. 1/4 was about the helicopter pads build on top of the ruins during war. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. I was there and even sent pictures into Wikipedia to dispel their claims America ruined the ruins for everyone in the future generations.

      They rejected me and basically put me in Wikipedia jail.

      I like older books with a seasoning of constitutional awareness.

2. Totally confused with this article. Where is this going ? Are we making anything besides baking soda and salt ?

   1. Squirrel 44,

      Sorry- “This article is not intended to be a “how to” on making specific compounds. “.

      The purpose is to encourage people to add a chemistry capability to their preps for TEOTWAWKI scenarios.

      1. Thanks. Your work product is thorough but obviously expensive if starting from scratch. If you could provide a listing of final state products that you believe could be reasonably made – in order of what’s critical, readers could take a look and see if that business case/value proposition worked for each individual. Need help on the types of things beyond simple mixtures that might come to mind.

3. Two things:

   The baking powder you describe making is single-acting baking powder. Once it is mixed into the batter, the batter should be baked immediately. No waiting for the oven to preheat or baking the second half of the batch later. Most of what is sold in stores and what we use on a daily basis is double-acting baking powder, which is activated by heat as well as the liquid/chemical activation of the single-acting baking powder.

   Iodized salt actually does have a shelf life of about five years. After five years, the iodine has dissipated and you are left with plain salt.

   1. Jen R-

      I have seen baking powder recipes that that include alum, would the alum make it a double-acting baking powder?

      Thanks for sharing, I did not know there was different types.

      1. No, it’s not the alum that makes baking powder double-acting, because you can buy alum-free double-acting baking powder. I don’t remember exact what it was, only that it wasn’t an easy DIY thing.

         1. Thanks Jen

4. 3ADscout,
   I’m a realist and always fact check everything. I learned several things in this first installment and appreciate the sharing of your knowledge. I also hold in high regard your service to our country, thank you. I believe this entire article will be way to short, maybe you should consider writing a basics manual with specific limitations so the task doesn’t get out of hand. Bottom line, I want more….

   1. Gimbalbutt

      Yes way too short. Really wanted to add some photos since “a picture is worth a thousand words” but I had a concern doing that.

      The great thing with chemistry- you learn by experimenting! My chemistry set today is WAY better than the one I had growing up!

5. Good article. I finally got grand daughter interested in chemistry when I pointed out that cooking involves chemistry and showed her what happens when you don’t follow instructions.
   On a more serious note: LABEL the Bottles of “STUFF” whatever they are. I cleaned dads shop after he passed, and while he knew what was in them, nobody else did. Battery acid, muriatic acid, tire lube, were the least harmful stuff. He had chemicals from years past that when combined in steel vats, were used to blue rifles. Some of it we had no clue about how to dispose or handle cause the labels were gone, if there had been any. Yes, we finally got it done safely with the aid of a chemistry teacher. Then we had to get into the box of ‘scents’ in his trappers stuff.

6. You should wear both safety glasses and a face shield. The face shield won’t do anything to stop glass shards. Also be careful if you’re working with flames, the cheap face shields can melt to your face and magnify the damage.

   1. Vagus and 3ADscout, Your advice is much appreciated. Thank you for sharing.

7. Don’t neglect your sense of smell to identify chemicals, but do use proper technique. Your example of placing the unknown under your nose and inhaling was exactly wrong. Instead, wave a finger or two above the unknown to fan a whiff of it toward your nose, several inches away.
   Secondly, as Mr. Gaines my 5th grade science teacher said many times, if you work with glass it will break, it’ only a question of when.

8. Thanks for this article, and it is probably much too brief. Also many of the names of things have changed over the past 100+ years, e.g. water glass is sodium silicate and used to preserve eggs. I don’t know whether it was the best egg preserver but apparently it was one way to preserve. Washing soda is sodium carbonate, acetone is dimethyl ketone; 2-propanone. If you are going to reference older books in the part 2 it might be worthwhile to include the current name of the chemical compounds mentioned or reference a website you believe reliable. As a former clinical medical laboratory tech, I have considered buying hemocytometers and such to be able to do white, red blood cell and platelets counts, etc., when the shtf. Don’t know if it would be worth it or not and just go by physical symptoms.

9. A word on physical libraries.

   After wildfire wiped out my town, my survival reference library was a pile of ash.
   Digital copies are awfully nice to have. Not always so easy to come by.
   Things like Mother Earth News and Home Power magazine have digital archives for a small fee. Many hard copy books have an e-pub version as well.
   And if you have the patience for it and a decent scanner you can make a .pdf copy of just about anything.
   Amazing how much of a library you can fit on a smartphone SD card.

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