Re: working with cellulose

Cellulose is highly flammable and potentially explosive.

"Allan Adler" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Is there a book that explains how to make miniature models with cellulose,
> bakelite (or other photoelastic materials) safely and cheaply? All I know
> is that cellulose is supposed to come in sheets that one can glue together
> seamlessly using solvents, which makes me wonder about toxicity risks.
> For bakelite, I have no idea. I'm also told one can sometimes use gelatin,
> but I doubt that it can be done so as to model anything like a rigid beam
> or an airplane wing. (All I found for gelatin using google was K-12
> activities making cells out of gelatin and nuts and jelly beans and also
> making volcanoes). I also have no idea about the costs of working with
> cellulose or bakelite. If one machines bakelite, maybe one has to also
> worry about inhaling particles.
>
> My source for all the information I do have is pretty old, going back to
> the 1930's or so. There might have been newer materials one can use
> that are cheaper, safer and easier to work with and still have excellent
> photoelastic properties. I mostly left glass out of my comments because
> I'm told it actually has inferior photoelastic properties to cellulose
> and bakelite and is a lot harder to work with.
>
> In case you haven't guessed, I want to make models and look at them
> between crossed polars.
>
> Ignorantly,
> Allan Adler
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
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> *  Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT Artificial
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