Shopping Day

Well, today has been both productive and frustrating. I did manage to find a 1 lb. bottle of 100% lye right off the bat, and that will help a lot with the experimentation.

I have some leftover sodium carbonate that I made in the oven for my cyanotype project, and my pH test strips have clocked it at 11 (almost 12 even!), but I'm worried it won't be strong enough. I feel confident that the lye will work even if my homebrewed Na2CO3 doesn't. Four bucks was a little steep for such a small bottle, but worth it for the piece of mind...

Outside of that, I spent a lot of time wandering around different farm supply/hardware stores looking for perlite (without fertilizer, which is apparently impossible), diatomaceous earth, limestone, etc. to little avail. Lowes had this:

GREAT DEAL, RITE?!

I was pretty excited when I found it, but then I checked the ingredients.

I'm not totally sure, but I think this is too many things. Also, I'm no math expert, but those numbers don't seem to add up right. Anyway, I also found this pretty sweet shed at Lowes marked down from either $900 or $2300 depending on which of these you believe.

Wait...so it's...how much for what exactly?

If I had a place to put this, I feel like it would be stupid not to get it, but I guess not having the option has conveniently reduced the complexity of the problem for me!

Here's a quick look at some of the other fun things I picked up today!

This blower might end up proving too powerful for the forge, even with a damper flap, but it was only like $10, and will find a way to be useful for something.

By a stroke of luck, this package deal saved me a lot of money in brass.

No science project is complete without huge PVC gloves.

Stainless bowls and tools to get messy with.

That's all for now! A mercifully short update.

BLB