I usually never follow these kind of advice, without an explanation. Why is sand bad? Besides the mess it makes?
“Dont go smoking weed.” “Its considered dangerous” I’m sure all of us have heard that at some point or another and still did the opposite, because we didnt get a good enough explanation to those warnings.
I bet all these guys in Cali blowing up their labs also didnt listen much.
I do this all the time as it helps me prevent overshooting. I’ve done this with every single Chinese mantle I’ve ever owned and never had a problem. I highly doubt you’ve ever even tried this so
This is now a sand bath thread
http://www.orgchemboulder.com/Technique/Equipment/Communityequip/Heatingmantle.shtml
http://www.crscientific.com/properheating.html
Added to my arsenal. Thank you future
Sand baths do have a much higher potential for being able to literally melt the glass and fuse it to the mantle
I use oil baths all the time and the only issue I’ve had so far is now being winterized reaaaalll good. And never happening again.m
The great thing about oil baths is the ultra low watt density of the heat transfer makes about as gentle heat as you can really get, it’s just slow and takes a really long time to adjust temps, you can always drain and pour cold oil in to lower temp I guess
No, not safe at all. I keep telling this is a bad move and can create a accident. You will probably hot spot the glass and make it shatter.
Why do you persist in making a fool of yourself and assumptions about me.
The sand or glass rope will create a barrier between the fluid temperature and the walls even further. On china mantles what happens is the outside heats and awaits the core thermocouple to read this temperature. You are only supposed to have a small dense glass rope wind around your mantle both for stability and for heat density. This is something I told people years ago and was one of the first practicing heat rope/glass rope while everyone else was using foil. You are arguing with the person who introduced heat rope on mantles years ago to the industry.
Next sand will get piping hot(and has its own issues) the issue is the areas closest to the glass and heated walls will “hot spot” and get very hot, even while evaporation is occurring the remainder glass will sub cool and create a stress fracture that circles the flask. This is user error and not glassware manufacturing error typically. User wrror from not taking this kind of advice. See I deal in warranty items so I see more things than you, and I know how to properly address it without spewing hate twoards someone with unvalidated opinions like you have expressed.
The heat is supposed to touch the glass as soon as possible and transfer heat to core rapidly or else you risk implosion, weakening glass, damaging glass, etc…
Next. Sand will literally get all over the bowl and cause damage. If your gap is about half inch or so and you want to use sand instead of rope you have to layer two sheets of PTFE liner in your mantle bowl, then pour dried sand around the flask. This is called a thermal barrier bed used to transfer heat faster. The okay method to use is this method because it’s very very thin sand and doesn’t create a thermal blockage while transferring heat and when you are done and remove flask the PTFE liner can be removed with Sand not affecting the heating device or spinner etc…
Now to get to brass tax. When you use a small flask in a large mantle and use sand, what you are doing is like cooking a enail. It will make that band glow red hot while the heat is waiting to travel to the flask. Inherently the band gets weak, electronics over heat and hardware becomes damaged. The most common damage when doing this sand tech to fill in for small flasks is the relay and transformer overheat; melt and risk sending electricity to the ground terminal and causing a shock to the user when using. It’s a text book failure.
I like your brass tax
The evaporative cooling causing heat fracture makes a lot of sense didn’t think of that, guess it’s just water under the fridge for some people though.
I’m talking about putting your probe on the outside of the flask, I never said anything about putting sand in a mantle. If you look at what you replied to you’ll see you said not to do that as itll ruin your mantle, I never said anything about sand so you’re the one looking like a jackass lol you have since you came on this forum 
Putting the probe on the outside of the flask offers its own issues. Do you want me to lay it out for you there too. Sounds like it’s your first time. I am more than happy to help answer your questions and help you gather a complete understanding of how to opperate a mantle with all the tips and tricks you’d like.
If you use a sand bed ontop a PTFE liner. You can bypass the thermo port and use the black bypass plug. This makes nearly all china mantles and other mantles read temperature front the bowl. One issue is you’ll be using localized readings but it will heat the mantle safely as it stabilizes the mantle bowl with the sand and prevents the sand itself from just over shooting. The lower wattage/direct thermal energy apllied used in this process makes it highly disadvantageous to do since your glass will heat and cool rapidly during a distillation effectively slowing down your process compared to just buying a correct mantle. But it can be done…if it’s your first time…
See that wasn’t so hard. You can play nice too if you Wana learn a tip or trick…
Thank you all for the tips - Problem was solved by buying all new tubes and ends to insure no vacuum leaks & going to Downtown LA to Biohazard where the great staff showed me the difference between a cheap mantle and a great quality one from Summit Research mantle that SOLVED my problem - Those guys rock & the rep there showed me a bad ass big boar that I now only need the glass for so next month I’m doing that from them
I’m currently spun BEAUTIFUL light gold oil
Don’t buy from biohazard. They are so expensive. The most expensive in la
does 25ml in a 1000ml mantle count? yes it works, yes its slow, stirrings fucked
I’ve got the older style heating mantle (china usalab model) should i get a 22L boiling flask or a 20L? thanks for any info!
Not really sure. 20 and 22 is like a half inch over all diff in flask.
that’s what i thought, i guess my best option is get an exact mantle size just base off that, thanks for the help!
any chance you would be willing to tell me the inside diameter of the heating mantle bowl? maybe even one of the old one if you still have one?
You can run a 22L flask in a 20L mantel. There’s a couple of others here on the forum that run that kind of setup.