I am having problems sourcing calcium carbide for a railroad lamp. Apparently calcium carbide was invented in Canada but is now impossible to find except in industrial quantities. US retailers will not ship to Canada as it is classified as dangerous goods. I found a source in Abu Dhabi that accepted my order only to find out it ships from the US so the order was cancelled shortly after it was placed. I see it is used in the Netherlands for firing cannons. Is Canada the only country that has this restriction? Need some soon. Thank you. "On May 2, 1892, in Spray (now Eden), Canadian chemist Thomas L. Willson accidentally produced calcium carbide and acetylene with an electric-arc furnace."
Shipping of Carbide means shipping of dangerous goods. Shipping dangerous goods across borders can be really annoying. (Paperwork, labelling, fees, more paperwork, more fees and more labels). So it really works out only if you buy a truckload a time. Carbide is used widely by speleologists in Europe. They like the kind of light it gives for taking pictures. So look out for them, they will also be around in your country. I buy there: Karbid-Versand You might ask them if they do ship to Canada. Erik
Older hardware stores and farm supply shops sometimes have a tin lurking on the shelf out back. Ask the older person behind the counter
Hi @Blueflame It seems that Canada has imposed a lot of restrictions on the import of these stuffs. Why don't you try if the local chemical suppliers would sell them? Maybe..err... Alphachem Limited, 2485 Milltower Ct, Mississauga, ON L5N 5Z6, Canada ??? Or Cole-Parmer Canada, 5101 Rue Buchan, Montréal, QC H4P 1S4, Canada ??? In my area(Malaysia), I can still buy them easily in 1 or 2kg plastic bag packaging. They are commonly used for artificial / accelerated ripening of fruits here. Yeah! There are those who use them for homemade cannons during the festive season. These don't shoot projectiles. They're meant for the loud report(boom) only. Good luck.
A restriction for shipping and privately having things send into a country doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't sold there. Have you checked with a paint retailer, hardware store or a "store for farm stuff", whatever the corrcect term is for those? You know those who sell all kind of chemicals, fertilizer, fodder and all other stuff a farmer need. They used to have carbide for pest control (voles and moles). That's where I buy my calcium carbide, but often I have to ask for them to take it home since the demand nowadays are so low. Go and check with a well-supplied retailer! If that fails, get in contact with some Canadian speleogs and ask if they still use carbide lamps, and if so; where they get their carbide. Unfortunately they are phasing out the carbide lamps more and more all over the world after the LED-lamps really got good, but it's worth a shot!
My most recent source for was from Italy, HERE - a 5kg tub - I’m bitten by the carbide appliance bug bad. One day, I hope to find an elusive carbide-fuelled stove ...
You shouldn't blow up my low resolution pictures in size like that. They just get noisier, not better. Here's a link to where I posted that stove attachment originally. It's an intersting device. Not an actual stove per se, but as said, an attachment for turning your regular domestic stove into a calcium carbide fuelled stove. We (Sweden) made alot of carbide stuff mainly during WWI to compensate for the rationing of fossil fuels.
@MYN Alphachem Limited, 2485 Milltower Ct, Mississauga, ON L5N 5Z6, Canada ??? Cole-Parmer Canada, 5101 Rue Buchan, Montréal, QC H4P 1S4, Canada ??? Alphachem-waiting for price/shipping Cole-Parmer- although based in my home town, the product is only available in the US...so they use a US distributor
@Blueflame It seems to me that Canadian regulations are harsh in classifying calcium carbide as ‘dangerous goods’. Keeping water away from the stuff is much less of a challenge than ensuring that a butane canister isn’t pierced or crushed in transit.
@presscall Our hazardous materials regulations were formed by the same group that concocted the firearms laws in the UK.
@Blueflame What about Alphachem? I'm guessing that you're gonna have a tough time getting from overseas. And USA is not even oversea. You can ask if the fruits dealers might know anything about them. I'm not sure if these are used there for ripening. They might use ethylene instead of acetylene. There is a calcium carbide factory in my hometime. There aren't many here anyway. Carbide lamps have been completely phased out here, at least since the 80s. We used to have calcium carbide from a lot of hardware and agricultural supplies stores all over the country.
Got a price from Alphachem for 500g of CC, smallest quantity available. $212.00 CDN delivered, taxes extra. I can wait.
Well I think that's reagent-grade? 'Chemically pure' laboratory grades are of course way more expensive that the ones used for lamps. Given the scarcity and difficulties you're having to obtain it, I guess that price is not a big deal.
Another possible alternative is just to drive down to the US and buy it personally. I think Montreal is close enough to the bordering USA.
Yes....when (if) the USA/Canada border reopens that will be my plan. Plenty of family members in the US.
Ahum, so getting it at your local bicycle shop is rather unusual... It is also used as pesticide as I remember well so that could also be a source. Overhere, these days the "Carbid schieten" starts up again. Sort off national sport during the years end in rural areas.
I can see that they brought the carbide-cannon fun to a whole new level in the Netherlands. And the safety features too. Here in my area, its a lot more 'primitive' and dangerous without regard to any form of safety. They're mostly executed 'secretly' by kids and adolescents with zero supervision in the rural areas. We used to fill up large bamboo sections with the acetylene generated from the calcium carbide chips and lit them at arm's length. Many a times, the bamboo gave way and splintered, followed by grievous injuries. We would fill up just about anything that's fillable with the gas and try to either blow them up or simulate real cannons. Iron pipes, telegraph poles, hollowed out coconut trunks, trash bins, letter boxes, termite mounds, empty metal cans, discarded closets and refrigerators,...you name it. We would cannibalize the delay fuses from fireworks or use a long piece of kerosene-soaked rag as the delay train for 'bigger and more spectacular' stuffs. As a mischievous kid, you bet I would have done it on a car too if I could find an abandoned one.
How about building your very own mini arc furnace at home and making it from crushed lime and coke. A quick search on google shows a few projects.... i succeeded making small amounts of white phosphorus in the past starting from crushed bones. Perseverance pays off..... How to Make Calcium Carbide!
Why on Earth would you want to make white phosphorus, @Alex74 ?? Its pretty nasty stuff. Incendiaries or smoke screens? Do you have an electric arc furnace at home? The craziest I've been was building a crude gas furnace/kiln at home(a couple of years ago). If I remember correctly, I was attempting to synthesize some sodium chromate by fusing sodium carbonate and green chromic oxide together. Attached is a picture of it operating at night. The incandescence at the vent was purely from the inner walls of the brick structure, not the flames:
That looks awesome. I am a chemist with an interest in the history of chemistry and alchemy, early fire- lighting contraptions, and of course I wanted to replicate some of those early alchemists preps including phosphorus distillation from bone ash and charcoal. It took several attempts with a furnace made out of an old flower pot with 3 hairdryers acting as bellows...the retort and copper spout where the most difficult thing to make using fire cement. I think carbide May be easier to try and make in the garden!
I'm not a chemist but I've known for a long time, that White phosphorus is pyrophoric in air. That's because I was a pyro fan and read all about those fire stuffs before my twenties. Its not that easy to make at home. Well calcium carbide ain't that easy as well. You'd need some highly refractory materials to contain the reactants in the heat. Many years ago as a young lad, I've seen a factory in operation from a distance. The equipment structure was almost like a blast furnace. The glow from the molten mass or slag was dazzling, almost blinding. If I'm into alchemy, my first priority would probably be turning rocks into gold.
When you look through a carbide burner jet should you see right through it or is there a screen/filter?. Right now I cannot see through my jet but I can force air through it. Time for an ultrasonic session?
You shouldn't be able to see through a carbide burner because it generally consists of two orifices that are positioned in an angle to eachother in order to shape the flame pattern as the two gas jets meet. There is no straight lined passage to see through, so to speak. I'll attach a picture from a Primus carbide lamp manual (that show how you clean the orifices with a pricker) to give you an idea of how they look. That is a standard type burner. There are variants, but the principle is practically always the same, even if you sometims has the orifices more visibly spread out by shaping the burner as a "Y" or "U" which you more often see in vehicle lamps. Some burners has a screen at the bottom, though, but generally not. The filter is in most cases in the tube up to the burner or at the very bottom of it in the form of a piece that is attached at the bottom of the water container, but in the carbide containers area.
@Carlsson Upon further examination you are correct. Exactly as in the illustration. My Swedish is non existant....is it possible to translate for me? I assume it is the procedure for cleaning the jet? Thank you.
Glad to see that the illustration was applicable also to your burner! That illustration and text is just a snippet from the instruction that came along with the Primus 1031 lamp and lantern versions (seen below). I'll try a very quick- and free- translation of that particular part here. "Make sure that if water has been dripping in a loaded carbide lamp, it may never be dismantled near an open flame. If, after a longer period of use, the flame should show a mis-aligned flame, you need to clean out the two gas jets which are drilled at an angle to eachother. Prick them with the included wire cleaner as the illustration show. The produced lime from the lamp is a good fertilizer and can be used in your kitchen garden."
