From: glhurst@onr.com (Gerald L. Hurst)
Newsgroups: sci.chem
Subject: Re: Blending Talcolm Powder
Date: 24 Jan 1996 22:36:44 GMT

In article <4e68bp$9me@lijgate.lij.edu>, Kaminie Amarjit <Amarjit@lij.edu> says:

>Forgive my ignorance,but what is a waring blender.  Is it a regular 
>blender you use in the kitchen.

"Waring" is a trade name which has become colloquially generic
for all makes of high-speed kitchen blenders. The brand name
is especially common among chemists because the company also
makes stainless steel models for laboratories.

Personally, I always used Oesterizer mixers or their OEM
cousins because they have Mason Jar standard threads. This
gives one the option of using upside-down canning jars as
mixing vessels and can save a lot of trouble in clean up
when working with a lot of gunky materials. Once the material
is blended, simply screw on a lid and the product is ready
for storage. For the next batch you use another 50 cent jar.

With liquids, it helps to have a couple of spare blade 
assemblies and to buy silicone gaskets (for organics). I used
to soak my gaskets in solvent to leach out the plasticizers
and thereby avoid contamination of sensitive organic mixes.

For talcum powder, any mixer should make uniform blending
a piece of cake (easy).

Jerry (Ico)