Floating Anvils...

[LouNY]

I find a lot of the comments on this almost humorus,
I spent many years in the instrumentation and control field,
one project back in the 80's early 90's was the removal from service of numerous differential pressure meters both recorders and transmitters,
that employed mercury filled bellows as sensing elements and many of them came out of water systems. Prior to removing them they had required being flushed and cleaned because the operators would not operate the valving correctly and would blow the mercury out and into the process fluid. We used to routinely clean and reuse the mercury in those meters and then add to it during calibration and servicing. When we took those meters out of service we recovered hundred of pounds of mercury.
Also many of our manometers were mercury filled, some were scaled in inchs of hg many had conversion scales on them to read in inches of water using mercury as a fill fluid.
When all the OSHA mercury exposure standards got shoved down our throats $100,000 of dollars of calibration standards and labs and shops had to be trashed and sent of to haz mat land fills.

 

[MossRoad]

You forgot to tell us what the relationship of mercury (which is/was used in thousands of products) is to a gas meter. That I have never heard of.

...

Sorry. Thought it was common knowledge. Here ya go.

Residential Mercury Spills from Gas Regulators

 

[k0ua]

Sorry. Thought it was common knowledge. Here ya go.

Residential Mercury Spills from Gas Regulators

Nope, had no knowledge of the mercury in the gas regulator. I am not surprised though as so many things in the past have used mercury. It sounds like that one contractor was a walking hazard.

 

[grsthegreat]

Mercury is extracted from Cinnabar ore by heating it to a high temperature. Not a good occupation standing over a smelting furnace.

Funny thing, I had a science teacher in 1967 who had the baby food jar full of mercury to pass around the class so we could stick our fingers in it and coat pennies with it.
He suggested we cut the ends off flourescent tubes to collect it if we wanted to have some at home.

He spent lots of time typing up lab experiments while chain smoking Tareytons in the back of the classroom, taught us how to make fireworks, testing them on a cable that stretched from the back porch to the baseball backstop 300 ft downrange.

It didn't seem to hurt him any, he died at 92 some years back.

ya, but if he didn’t play with mercury he might of lived to be 105...... actually I played with it when I was a kid. It never hurt me any.

I played with it when I was a kid, it never hurt me any. I played with it.......

 

[turnkey4099]

Just to add some actual facts to the mercury discussion. Mercury in its LIQUID form is fairly innocuous. A spill in a house, if not cleaned up, will slowly evaporate adding mercury vapor to the atmosphere. That is what is dangerous. One can swallow liquid mercury and it passes out of the system

https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mdch_MercurySpillFactsheet_85689_7.pdf

 

[Ford850]

Moss, did you realize Mercury was in retrograde for the first time in 2020, starting the day before you posted this?

 

[LouNY]

Just to add some actual facts to the mercury discussion. Mercury in its LIQUID form is fairly innocuous. A spill in a house, if not cleaned up, will slowly evaporate adding mercury vapor to the atmosphere. That is what is dangerous. One can swallow liquid mercury and it passes out of the system

https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mdch_MercurySpillFactsheet_85689_7.pdf

The normal air changes in a house would keep the levels low unless someone was trying to bump it up.
Just more bureaucratic paperwork.

 

[ruffdog]

The normal air changes in a house would keep the levels low unless someone was trying to bump it up.
Just more bureaucratic paperwork.

That depends on how "tight" the house is.

 

[MossRoad]

Moss, did you realize Mercury was in retrograde for the first time in 2020, starting the day before you posted this?

I used to have just a pinch of respect for the Old Farmer's Almanac....


Mercury Retrograde Dates in 2 | What Is Mercury Retrograde? | The Old Farmer's Almanac

 

[2LaneCruzer]

I used to have just a pinch of respect for the Old Farmer's Almanac....


Mercury Retrograde Dates in 22 | What Is Mercury Retrograde? | The Old Farmer's Almanac

Come on...Ford Motor Company quit production of the Mercury in 2011...

 

[groundcover]

Alan Jackson - Mercury Blues - YouTube

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Love it! One of my Karaoke favorites.

 

[MossRoad]

 

[radios1]

this is what is used for a mercury spill, no special vacuum needed. Mercury Magnet TM Spill Kit btw, Dental amalgam is a mixture of metals, consisting of liquid (elemental) mercury and a powdered alloy composed of silver, tin, and copper. which could also be used for cleaning up the mercury..

 

[ultrarunner]

I've wondered if there is any connection to memory and Mercury amalgam...

 

[k0ua]

The "old timers" back in the gold rush days that used a mercury "sponge" to pick up the gold dust out of their pans also were forming an amalgam of mercury and gold by doing this. The gold was suspended in the glob of mercury. To separate the mercury from the gold to sell off the gold, the prospectors would do the absolute worst thing in the world to do with mercury and that was to boil it. Yep put their sponge in a pan over a fire and heat the mercury until it turned into mercury vapor and vapored off into the air. Just where they were while this happened is anyone's guess, but turning mercury metal into mercury vapor is the best known way to poison yourself with mercury. No wonder so many old prospector's are always depicted as crazy old coots.

 

[/pine]

The "old timers" back in the gold rush days that used a mercury "sponge" to pick up the gold dust out of their pans also were forming an amalgam of mercury and gold by doing this. The gold was suspended in the glob of mercury. To separate the mercury from the gold to sell off the gold, the prospectors would do the absolute worst thing in the world to do with mercury and that was to boil it. Yep put their sponge in a pan over a fire and heat the mercury until it turned into mercury vapor and vapored off into the air. Just where they were while this happened is anyone's guess, but turning mercury metal into mercury vapor is the best known way to poison yourself with mercury. No wonder so many old prospector's are always depicted as crazy old coots.

Likewise with lighthouse keepers...

 

[dragoneggs]

The "old timers" back in the gold rush days that used a mercury "sponge" to pick up the gold dust out of their pans also were forming an amalgam of mercury and gold by doing this. The gold was suspended in the glob of mercury. To separate the mercury from the gold to sell off the gold, the prospectors would do the absolute worst thing in the world to do with mercury and that was to boil it. Yep put their sponge in a pan over a fire and heat the mercury until it turned into mercury vapor and vapored off into the air. Just where they were while this happened is anyone's guess, but turning mercury metal into mercury vapor is the best known way to poison yourself with mercury. No wonder so many old prospector's are always depicted as crazy old coots.

We recently held an company two day 'offsite' for all of our managers at St. Mary's Art Center in Virginia City, Nevada. The place was originally built in 1875 as a hospital to serve the silver and gold miners. The place feels like it is haunted with crazy old coots. I am assuming back then the nurses had no idea what was causing the problems.

ST. MARY'S ART CENTER – Where Art, History & Community Come Together Since 1964

 

[MossRoad]

Repaired your link...