Alum - where can I get some?

[Exbomz]

Help!!!

Can anyone recommend anywhere I can get some Alum (Aluminium Sulphate)? I want to taw (like tanning) some deerskins and cannot find any suppliers.

Cheers

 

[arctic hobo]

Normal chemists' shops. It's sold as a skin hardener I think.

 

[Toddy]

I use alum as a mordant but it's not cheap in the quantities dyers buy.
http://www.fibrecrafts.com/
and go into the George Weil page. Then find the pdf file for natural dyes and mordants. [see page3]
I usually phone in an order and my supplies are here by the next day.
I know of a farmers wife who tans sheepskin using paraffin and alum, but she buys the stuff in 25 kilo bags, so somewhere the farming community has access to cheap, large volume supplies. I don't think I can get the source for you quickly, I know of her through a friend who is walking the Knoydart penninsula just now.

Cheers,
Toddy

 

[CLEM]

I believe that the old time fighters used to chew a kind of alum to harden their gums and mouths.

 

[leon-1]

Help!!!

Can anyone recommend anywhere I can get some Alum (Aluminium Sulphate)? I want to taw (like tanning) some deerskins and cannot find any suppliers.

Cheers

You may be able to find it as slaked lime, apart from beingused for the decomposition of bodies in mass graves it is also used in the filtraton process for water.

Alum/slaked lime is placed onto large water containers, as it becomes waterlogged it sinks and carries most particles or foriegn bodies (this is purely a medical term) down to the bottom of a tank/container filtering the majority of bits down with it.

A particularly horrible thing to think about and I am sorry about it, but these are also uses for it. Better to be able to say it is for one than the other.

 

[george]

You may be able to find it as slaked lime, apart from beingused for the decomposition of bodies in mass graves it is also used in the filtraton process for water.

Alum/slaked lime is placed onto large water containers, as it becomes waterlogged it sinks and carries most particles or foriegn bodies (this is purely a medical term) down to the bottom of a tank/container filtering the majority of bits down with it.

A particularly horrible thing to think about and I am sorry about it, but these are also uses for it. Better to be able to say it is for one than the other.

As I understand it Leon, slaked lime is actually calcium hydroxide and is used mostly for lime plasters and mortars. It is made by "slaking" quicklime or burned limestone with water. Quicklime is what is used to quickly decompose carcasses or dead bodies.

Slaked lime was traditionally used for making parchment see here; http://www.dedas.com/parchment/uk/rcps00.html

Alum, aluminium sulphate, is a different thing altogether.

Exbomz - your best bet for quantities of alum is probably water treatment companies - this one here does aluminium sulphate liquor in 1000l drums - possibly a bit much for what you want http://www.acornwater.ie/products.htm but there might be others that sell it in smaller quantities.

George

 

[Moonraker]

You may be able to find it as slaked lime, apart from beingused for the decomposition of bodies in mass graves it is also used in the filtraton process for water.

Alum/slaked lime is placed onto large water containers, as it becomes waterlogged it sinks and carries most particles or foriegn bodies (this is purely a medical term) down to the bottom of a tank/container filtering the majority of bits down with it.

A particularly horrible thing to think about and I am sorry about it, but these are also uses for it. Better to be able to say it is for one than the other.

In France they use (or used to use)egg white and also blood to filter the wine in a similar way, i.e. clearing all the bits and taking it to the bottom of the barrel leaving the wine clear. Correctly they are called flocculants

george I reckon you are both about right

'slaked lime' or Calcium hydroxide is formed when you 'slake'/ mix 'quicklime' or Calcium oxide with water.

Quicklime/Calcium oxide is used water treatment to balance pH (being an alkaili it reduces acidity), often to soften the water.

Quicklime is actually used to preserve bodies!, in disaster situations for example, where refrigeration is not possible. This is demonstrated well by Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde, who poetically asserted that quicklime ate the flesh by day and the bones by night, served to refute his own assertion, for he was himself buried in quicklime, and on his exhumation two years later was found to be well preserved.

It was a technique used in Egypt to preserve mummified bodies.

Having used hydrated lime myself to mark out sports pitches I can tell you it is evil stuff to use

 

[Exbomz]

Just logged on and found many helpful tips/pointers .

Cheers guys; I will try them out and thanks for the assistance.

 

[Keith_Beef]

Isn't this the stuff that climbers (esp. freeclimbers) keep in a little bag on their belts, to keep their fingers dry and grippy?


Keith.

 

[arctic hobo]

Isn't this the stuff that climbers (esp. freeclimbers) keep in a little bag on their belts, to keep their fingers dry and grippy?


Keith.

I've always used chalk

 

[Venger]

It was a technique used in Egypt to preserve mummified bodies.

Thought that was Natron, (which is sodium carbonate Na2(CO3)·10(H2O))
-still either way fun to know.

Venger

 

[Keith_Beef]

I've always used chalk

No, I'm the one.

I was mixing up magnesium carbonate (climber's powder) and alum.

I think that chalk is calcium carbonate.


Keith.

 

[Exbomz]

Hi guys,

I managed to order some Alum (Aluminium Suplhate) so the skins will get the treatment they deserve. I also found a website listing sources for chemicals via one of the posts below (thanks Toddy); I have included the address here as it lists many other chemicals which might be of use to others (?).

http://www.hyperdeath.co.uk/chemicals/index.html