Sciencemadness Discussion Board

B&Q

Contrabasso - 21-9-2010 at 11:16

If B&Q is local to you look in the drain cleaner section for 91% sulphuric drain opener.

bquirky - 21-9-2010 at 11:18

there is a BBQ joke here somewhere.. i can feel it.

hissingnoise - 21-9-2010 at 11:33

B&Q - Richard Block and David Quayle - founders of the store that bears their initials. . .


Contrabasso - 21-9-2010 at 12:23

If those of us who live in the UK buy a bottle then this will probably become a regular stock item of use to lots of lab scientists. Sadly it's only 91% but otherwise even battery acid is unavailable OTC in the UK.

dann2 - 21-9-2010 at 13:13

Higher (96/98)% Sulphuric is available in 'builders providers' stores as Drain Cleaner if you look. Santrax is one brand.
Also 12%HCl as concrete cleaner or brick/patio cleaner (without surfactant) made by Larsen
The 35% stuff is available according to there web site but I have never came accross it.

You couldn't beat the builders providers shops with a big stick!!!!!!!!!

Can Butanol be had OTC in UK?

Dann2

peach - 21-9-2010 at 14:14

You can try and do it, when you B&Q it!

Then pay a builder...


Those guys are absolute asscrackers down there. Experts and trade specialists..... me arse! The prices are astronomical compared to a lot of the genuine trade places, who'll also sell to the public.

I once spent 15 minutes none stop discussing the intricacies of spray paint with one of the stupid slags to get my £5 back, after it wrinkled with 48h's worth of drying time. The discussion was basically "I'm that kind of customer who's not pissing off until he has his money back".

My mum bought a kitchen from there just recently. About £100 and five different packs of hinges later, she still don't have the right one for the remaining two doors. I was down there with her to destress the process, after they scanned her card three times and she ended up being billed for £10k+ in 3 minutes, with the bank on the phone and me wondering if the checkout woman was attempting to rip the card off.

ANYWAY.

B&Q recently stopped carrying concentrated sulphuric, as I'm aware of things (or are in the process of phasing it out), after another stupid slag poured a bottle of it down the sink to unblock it, then had a good long gaze down the plug hole as it started to crackle and boil. It did boil, quickly (thermally ran away), and sprayed the now hot, concentrated, acidic contents of the u-bend back into her face. Thermally and chemically burning her face into a horror film.

It does say on the pack not to do that kind of thing, and the guys who made it, when questioned, said "it does say don't do that on the pack". But alas, B&Q can do without 3rd degree burns victims mentioning it's name.

They do still sell sodium hydroxide pellets / flakes, which they ID'd me for. They ID'd me for the spray paint too.

As usual, if you pay more for the stuff in the colourful pack, they'll water it down for you and charge you some extra for the privilege.

I'll usually spend absolutely ages in there playing with everything and reading the backs of the packs. In a one of my long trolling endeavors, I checked out every bottle that looked remotely like a semi-pure chemical. The hydrochloric (what remains of it, as they're now switching to surfactants and other things) has surfactants and soaps in it. Which help it clean the drive better, but also make it a pain in the ass to purify. And, if you're using it with surfactant in it, you deserve what it's going to do to your results. :D

They used to sell pure sodium chlorate as a "kill EVERYTHING on my drive" herbicide. Which does work quite nicely for keeping all the weeds and grass from poking through the paving. I think that's disappeared as well. When I bought it, they had a mountain of it piled up on special offer, so they may have been trying to get rid of it.

It's only worth buying things from B&Q if you're going to shoplift them.

There are tons of places like Screwfix, or my personal Mecca, Toolstation.com that will DESTROY B&Q on prices, service, stocking, delivery and components. I got copies of catalogues from lots the different trade places then compared them. Toolstation is almost always cheaper (from pence to lots of pounds). There is a City Plumbing store next to my local one. I went in there after being in TS to ask them about something, they saw the catalogue in my hand and, without prompting, said "We can't do their prices". Too bad hey!

Seriously, visit Toolstation.com now sign up, get a free catalog each month and you'll find yourself on the bog with it or walking round B&Q comparing the prices. They also pride themselves on having a free vending machine in the stores. I can highly recommend the soup; the staff started making jokes that was the only reason I was down there twice a day.

The people using Toolstation are actually trade guys, so you can get some help with things if you spot someone looking at the items you are in the store. It works like Argos, you take a card in, or fill one in at the place, hand it over, then the staff go and pick all the bits up out of a huge rack of bins and shelves behind them. So the insurance is loads lower, things don't get put back in the wrong place and the till prints a "go to this isle, this row, this bin" ticket, allowing them to find it in seconds.

If you make an order over £10 before 6pm online, it'll turn up the next morning for free. And they're open to 4pm on Sunday. NICE.

I go on about Toolstation all the time. They're not, but they SHOULD be paying me for the amount of advertising I do.

I am very reluctant to start publishing long lists of where I pick up chemicals OTC online, as there are gimps watching these forums (lots, lots more than you'd think), not posting (the people posting are the minority), who'll do a "burn my own face off, get caught cooking drugs with it" and have it knocked off the shelf.

[Edited on 22-9-2010 by peach]

Chainhit222 - 21-9-2010 at 15:18

they probably ID you for sodium hydroxide because of punks base etching graphiti into shop windows.

peach - 21-9-2010 at 16:22

Quote: Originally posted by Chainhit222  
they probably ID you for sodium hydroxide because of punks base etching graphiti into shop windows.


It's one of the many items in there, anything pointy or sharp works as well, which makes the screen flash red and they have to type something to say they've checked your ID before it'll accept the payment.

I used to know a guy who went out spray painting all the time. He was addicted to it and would sit around smelling the spray paints in anticipation.

They use HF marker pens for glass quite often. It's dilute, but it's still 'not cool' apparently due to the toxic potential and kids touching the glass.

He got caught at one point out with someone else, who then did a shit in his pants and started listing off all the ways he paints and things. The police spend time going round photographing graffiti since they know the people tend to sign it with a style of some sorts. So they can link someone to all the other graffiti from a piece they know they did. He ended up in court of coarse.

Then he was in a clothing store and figured he'd do some more in the toilets. Some other guy was in there and apparently said ".... is here" just prior to the police raiding the toilet and arresting him again, so they were probably following him on the CCTV.

It was pretty funny, he spent 6 month tidying up grave yards as a result of that toilet incident.

MagicJigPipe - 21-9-2010 at 17:08

Quote:

Then he was in a clothing store and figured he'd do some more in the toilets.


Do some more what in the toilets? Take a shit?

EDIT:
Oh, I get it. You are in the UK where "toilet" means 'the whole bathroom' and not just the 'waste collection and disposal unit'.

Quote:

they probably ID you for sodium hydroxide because of punks base etching graphiti into shop windows.


WHAT? I have NEVER heard of this. Sounds kinda cool, though (unless you're the shop owner).

[Edited on 9-22-2010 by MagicJigPipe]

dann2 - 22-9-2010 at 12:56




Where I come from they usually use a brick to etch their signature into shop windows...........

appetsbud - 22-9-2010 at 15:03

not to completely derail the thread, but in edinburgh i saw some advert that was kind of bleached onto a dirty looking concrete embankment. It was for motorola, 'your social life in a single stream' or something.

it looked pretty professionally done, and was most definitely not just some graffiti artist who really liked motorola. Like a stencil, but where some parts of the wall were just made cleaner than others. Really sharp lines as well. It must be some kind of loophole for a company that big to be doing it...

i was just wondering if you could fathom what they might of used..?

i assumed some sort of oxidiser with a stencil or something, bleaching the dirt. I was thinking of getting out my hydrogen peroxide to see if it works, but i dont have it to hand.

any suggestions?

DJF90 - 22-9-2010 at 16:03

Yes theres a professional company that does advertising on the pavements, creating the design by removal of dirt using a pressure washer. I'm sure a google search could yield more information.

peach - 22-9-2010 at 19:45

A thread about B&Q, other than how to best set fire to the place, is well worth derailing.

Companies like Sony (I believe) have been taken to court for employing graffiti guys to print their logo's around the place and make them look 'KEWL', 'CONNECTED WITH DA TIMES ON THE STREET SHIZZLE!' and 'OUT THERE!'

Banksi is famous for using stencils and being a graffiti artist. The word artist is amusing there. Since photoshopping a photo, making a stencil and then spraying a few colours over it in five seconds isn't really art even by graffiti chav standards. Particularly when he's copying a guy in France who did it a long time before him, down to using similar images. But he's an acceptable form of 'THA STREET' for the London yupsters wishing to be 'KEWLZ'.

The cleaning thing isn't new either. And again, painting by numbers and with lines from photoshop = {mr wonka}you loose{/mr wonka}. You may as well just put a sticker or poster up.

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