Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: JB88 on May 02, 2005, 02:39:53 PM
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odd question but i am hoping that someone can answer it.
i am currently working on a project which requires that i create a relatively solid sculptural form using only materials indigenous to this area.
salt water and sand.
can salt be used as a binder when mixed with sand? if so, will it harden the mixture so long as i used non iodized salt?
sand scultpures have a tendancy to collapse very easilly and i need something a bit stronger.
could i extract salt from the gulf of mexico relatively easilly?
:)
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.........................evap orator....distill the water..u have salt left
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Originally posted by JB88
odd question but i am hoping that someone can answer it.
i am currently working on a project which requires that i create a relatively solid sculptural form using only materials indigenous to this area.
salt water and sand.
can salt be used as a binder when mixed with sand? if so, will it harden the mixture so long as i used non iodized salt?
sand scultpures have a tendancy to collapse very easilly and i need something a bit stronger.
could i extract salt from the gulf of mexico relatively easilly?
:)
turn the sand into glass and make a glass sculpture
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already using glass as a platform (using that very same cheat...lol)
very specific project this one.
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Originally posted by Furball
turn the sand into glass and make a glass sculpture
now that is a good answer !
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Originally posted by GreenCloud
.........................evaporator....distill the water..u have salt left
liebsig (sp?) condenser?
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Hey JB88 ( now this is just a joke, k)
Why don't you pound some sand up your bum and let it compact into a diamond? :D
Seriously, don't have a clue as to how to make the sand stay together with just salt. Seems like it won't be easy.
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the people that make the sand sculpturs spray the sand with something that makes it stick together, i don't know what it is.
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What other indigenous materials are there in your area? Just curious since it seems that you have chosen an awfully hard material to work with.
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Originally posted by JB88
salt water and sand.
No shells?
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Build yourself a sandcastle. Easy peezy Japanesey.:)
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isnt clay usualy below sand? If so can you use clay to create the project and then throw sand on it?
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Originally posted by Thrawn
No shells?
werd!
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JB88, I'm not a chemist, but I would think that salt would not make a good binding agent. First off, there's nothing in the sand for it to interact with, the sand being mostly silica. about the best you could do with salt is perhaps make a super-saturated solution, then spray it on your sculpture to for a crust. Doesn't sound like it'd be pretty though.
Nuke: You do realize diamonds are made from CARBON, right? But I'd pay good money to watch you pound some, just to see what it'd do.:lol
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spit in it....a awsome binder if you could come up with enough of it........
should't be to hard workin on that project on the beach and all...........:rofl
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Originally posted by slimm50
Nuke: You do realize diamonds are made from CARBON, right? But I'd pay good money to watch you pound some, just to see what it'd do.:lol
yeah, I know. Maybe should have said "pearl" instead :)
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use indigenous super glue.
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Originally posted by NUKE
yeah, I know. Maybe should have said "pearl" instead :)
hahem ... well it's not really better except if you are thinking of sand "biogène" wich is not really sand :)
I mean don't try to make glass with such a sand :)
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anyone care to vote on who is the bigger tightarse between nuke and i?
i'll gladly stand before that tribunal.
lol
;)
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Sodium Chloride bonding is so strong, it takes something damn beyond polar for it to bond with another solid. SiO2(sand) because of its nature(covalent bonding) is next to impossible to separate in everday situations such as yours. Meaning no bonding, no sticking together.
SI needs 4 bonds to be stable while each O atom needs 2 to be stable, thus 2 Oxygens bond with 1 Si. SIO2 uses 2 electrons for each bond (that is they are covalent) so it is tough and does not disolve in water.
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Originally posted by RightF00T
Sodium Chloride bonding is so strong, it takes something damn beyond polar for it to bond with another solid. SiO2(sand) because of its nature(covalent bonding) is next to impossible to separate in everday situations such as yours. Meaning no bonding, no sticking together.
SI needs 4 bonds to be stable while each O atom needs 2 to be stable, thus 2 Oxygens bond with 1 Si. SIO2 uses 2 electrons for each bond (that is they are covalent) so it is tough and does not disolve in water.
translation: It won't work find a new plan.
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anyone know how to make alginate?
(from seaweed)
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Originally posted by JB88
anyone know how to make alginate?
(from seaweed)
my experience is if you cook anything long enough it either:
1. melts and then rehardens
2. hardens
3. catches fire
EDIT:
If I were you I'd try the PETA tard forum....they'd definatly know how to make this.
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:rofl
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I think you can make hide glue if you find something dead on the shore.
1 cup collegen
1 cup water
3 table spoons of salt
heat these ingredients at 170 until thick, allow it to cool, mix in the sand, pour into mold, wait until it sets up, take out of mold, dry unlit hard.
Do not allow mixture to boil or get overcooked, as this will break the proteins in the collegen.
ps. this is very syinky, so do outside if possible.
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I don't know where you are, but there are two options around here.
You can take the soft limestone and either grind it down to a powder, or put small chunks in a fire, then use the powder dissolved in water as a good binder.
If you have access to gypsum, grind/burn/powder it and you will have a good, but not waterproof binder.
Last, get cornstarch and dissolve it in water, that is what the sand sculpture artists do.
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If you need to distill the water from the salt, you can make a small evaporator
1 large plate
1 small bowl
1 large clear salad bowl
put the salt water in the bowl, put the bowl on the plate, put the salad bowl upside down over the small bowl with the edge resting on the large plate, put out under the sun.
you should have pure water in the large plate and salt and whatnot in the small bowl when it is done evaporating.
These are also good things to keep on a boat, just in case you run out of water.
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What about saturating it with water and freezing it with liquid nitrogen (simulate winter)?
Charon
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Use sandstone
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interesting ideas guys, thank you very much!
i am also experimenting with epsom salts, but it still feels much like cheating to me.
alas, there may be no way around it.
i didnt know that the sand artists use cornstarch. im gonna give that a try tonight.
(i also have experiments going with seasalt and light plaster additives.)
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Snot will hold it together.
or bird ****.
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shells are from the ocean not from the land/water..
:confused: :rolleyes: :aok
Good luck and love to see the final prodfuct..
Ok the above typo was too funny to fix..
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What type of plants do you have in your area.
Sap from trees can make a dandy glue.
And if you have pinetrees around its even easier.
course if your near the ocean you can get a dead seagull make a lanscape with sand stick the seagull upside down with its head buried in the sand and name it "Sand Dart" :)
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Salt statues:
(http://boojum.hut.fi/~rhannine/Krakova2002/images/058_SaltStatues1.jpg)
http://boojum.hut.fi/~rhannine/Krakova2002/index_2.html
Some peeps I know do little salt statues to put on their xmass trees, they use hairspray to fix those. What size is your project?
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those are very beautiful saintaw.
i live on the emerald coast. the beached here are made of of white quartzite that is very fine in some places. (your feet squeak in it when you walk through it dry)
it is to be life sized.
a self portrait of sorts.
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Originally posted by JB88
it is to be life sized.
a self portrait of sorts.
You making a poop? :p
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i am beginning to learn 3d modelling so that so that i can begin to visualize the entire work before trying to build it with such fragile materials.
(i have a loooooong way to go on that i know)
it is an incomplete image at this point and does not include the other elements which will activate it.
(note: the green is going to be glass)
(http://www.augustbach.com/sand.jpg)
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needs stevie wonder glasses.
lol
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Well, if there is rice in the area... or if you are allowed to use milk from cows you can make one extremely potent 'glue' from either.
Cook rice sushi style and while its hot apply it as if it was glue. Then take a high powered fan or better yet some liquid nitrogen and quick-cool it. The stuff is like superglue and im not kidding.
Milk can also become a bonding agent... you let a big pot of milk just sit there until it almost turns into yogurt, you then collect the milk-fat that coagulates on top (i dont know how its called in english sry) and put it on a pan and heat it up adding a small amount of vinegar or lemon juice.
Keep stirring it over and over and over until the thing is nothing but a sticky glue.
(they used this technique in history channel too... the guy that builds and tests medieval weapons had a special that showed how shields were made. They made glue in a similar way to this but using goat milk).
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Not a chemist, but perusing some websites yielded some information. It seems if you could manufacture sodium silicate and fill a form with it to make a core, then expose it to carbon dioxide (this binds it to a solid) you may have a somewhat solid sculptural product. This is how cannon barrels are made btw, very interesting. If the parameters of your project disclude using armatures, then any wires and supporting rods can be removed (hopefully) after you are done.
Sodium hydroxide heated under pressure with silicon dioxide (sand) will produce sodium silicate.
2NaOH + SiO2 ==> Na2SiO3 + H2O
Sodium hydroxide is made by electrolyzing aqueous solutions of sodium chloride in chlor-alkali membrane cells. Hydrogen and chlorine gas form at the electrodes. Both these gases are dangerous and must be collected or vented away. Here's a website showing how sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) is made.
Chlor-alkali membrane cells (http://www.cheresources.com/chloralk.shtml)
As you can see, this is no backyard project, but is (theoretically) possible to do using the materials described. It would be of industrial scale and require expensive equipment and loads of time to account for setbacks, i.e. it may be viable for smaller sculptures (if it works at all), but may not work for larger objects, so much testing would have to be done.
I would not consider it unless the project is part of a R and D team effort with adequate financial underwriting and laboratory resources. Even with access to these things, it would be dangerous and complicated imo.
If the project is a conceptual art project, I would be very interested hearing how you deal with the problem using only sand and sea water and nothing else. I have a friend who is a sculptor, and I will ask him about this. Will let you know what he says. It may be he knows something about doing this an easier way, but I don't think he has done it before.
Les