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Meet the Couple Photos: Elements of Our Wedding: Outline Logistics: Registry |
Setting Up for Soldering - The Pickling Bath Before starting to solder, I had to set up the hot pickle bath. Pickle is a substance, usually an acid, designed to dissolve the scale (oxide) from a piece. The particular solution I decided to use was RioPickle, which is mostly sodium bisulfate. This chemical decomposes upon dissolving in water, releasing sulfuric acid. It's basically a safer way of storing sulfuric acid until you're ready to use it. First, I weighed out a precise amount of RioPickle powder above. Note that I used a weighing dish to keep it from spilling everywhere. Next came the water:  This isn't just any ordinary water - it's distilled, deionized and filtered water from our lab! This ensured that no minerals from hard Cambridge tap water would contaminate the pickle and plate out on the rings. I measured an 237mL of water,  mixed the pickle powder into the water and began to heat it up.
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