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Will Coke Dissolve a Nail? (2003)

joshmadison.com

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Re: Will Coke Dissolve a Nail? (2003)

#71

Post by kodt »

cthalupa wrote: post #68
saiya-jin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, please drink half a litre, or even better 2 litre of vinegar and report back to us how that went. or to reverse it - do you know anybody drinking coke in same amounts as usage of vinegar when pouring over salad?

I drink a lot of sour beers. The agent of souring is generally lactobacillus or pediococcus bacteria producing lactic acid. The pH of these is generally around 3, which is a little bit higher than vinegar. I've made some homebrew that is a bit lower - though it ended up being ab it too sour for my personal tastes. There have been plenty of days where I have had more than 2 liters of sour beer - many commercial bottle…

The other ill effect of sour beers is your wallet.

Now a new experiment: Will Upland Sours dissolve a nail in 4 days?

Re: Will Coke Dissolve a Nail? (2003)

#73

Post by barrkel »

buro9 wrote: post #12

Coke will help free a stuck seatpost in a bicycle if the frame is steel and the seat post is aluminium. Just turn the bike upside down, pour some coke down the seat tube, leave to stand overnight, and hit the seat with a mallet the next day.

Freezing (e.g. freeze spray) should also help. Generally, with interference fit mixed metal components, heat / cold is the way to minimize damage on assembly or disassembly.

Re: Will Coke Dissolve a Nail? (2003)

#74

Post by varjag »

Elrac wrote: post #66
varjag wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "iron nails"? Nalis are always low-grade steel with low carbon content, the rest is iron.

Most nails are made of steel. Aluminum, copper, brass, bronze, stainless steel, nickel silver, monel, zinc, and iron are also used. Galvanized nails are coated with zinc to give them added corrosion resistance. Blued steel nails are subjected to a flame to give them a bluish oxide finish that provides a certain amount of corrosion resistance. So-called cement-coated nails are actually coated with a plastic resin to i…

But no mention of keratin nails! What a woefully incomplete reference :)

Still unclear what is meant by "iron". I mean, low carbon steel is iron with some trace impurities. Cast iron? Nails aren't cast, besides it's brittle and less prone to rust than low carbon steel.

Re: Will Coke Dissolve a Nail? (2003)

#75

Post by jkot »

varjag wrote: post #36
jkot wrote: post #14

Hmm, results would be different if iron (not steel) nails would be used.

What do you mean by "iron nails"? Nalis are always low-grade steel with low carbon content, the rest is iron.

By iron I mean whatever dissolves easiest. Some metals will be very rusty after two weeks in water.

Re: Will Coke Dissolve a Nail? (2003)

#77

Post by coldtea »

pheonikai wrote: post #13
teekert wrote: post #7

"To illustrate that, the email points out that Coke can be used to clean a toilet, help remove a rusty bolt, or remove blood from a highway accident." Yeah well why would anybody believe that if a soda can be used in such ways that it is also bad for you? I mean I flush the toilet with water! With WATER! And it removes most traces of excrement... Arg, it must be bad for you!

Coke is used to clean a toilet and not flush it. To clean a toilet, generally some acid or detergent is needed. Effectiveness of Coke being used for this purpose shows its acidic nature and its ability to dissolve the material on which it is applied.

>Effectiveness of Coke being used for this purpose shows its acidic nature and its ability to dissolve the material on which it is applied.

What effectiveness? Who even does that? And from those who do it, who measured the effectiveness compared to plain water?

Re: Will Coke Dissolve a Nail? (2003)

#78

Post by ihuman »

teekert wrote: post #7

"To illustrate that, the email points out that Coke can be used to clean a toilet, help remove a rusty bolt, or remove blood from a highway accident." Yeah well why would anybody believe that if a soda can be used in such ways that it is also bad for you? I mean I flush the toilet with water! With WATER! And it removes most traces of excrement... Arg, it must be bad for you!

Dihydrogen Monoxide is a fearful substance and should be banned

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_hoax

Re: Will Coke Dissolve a Nail? (2003)

#79

Post by coldtea »

lmm wrote: post #58
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can also be used to clean battery terminals among other things. But then again, vinegar is a fairly common cleaning agent: Baking soda and salt are fairly effective as well. I've used salt and lemon juice to clean tarnish off of copper: Toothpaste to clean the tarnish off of silver jewelry or shine up gold. None of these are viewed as bad or unhealthy in the doses we tend to consume them in. Vegetable oils and wax…

> But then again, vinegar is a fairly common cleaning agent: Baking soda and salt are fairly effective as well. I've used salt and lemon juice to clean tarnish off of copper: Toothpaste to clean the tarnish off of silver jewelry or shine up gold. None of these are viewed as bad or unhealthy in the doses we tend to consume them in. Absolutely, but I'd be worried about someone who chugged any of those things in the sam…

Coke is 89% water (from the other % most is sugar).

Not really comparable to consuming 2 cans of salt, baking soda, toothpaste, etc.

And would you really be worried for people drinking several cans of lemon juice per day?

Re: Will Coke Dissolve a Nail? (2003)

#80

Post by wyldfire »

nosidam wrote: post #69
wyldfire wrote: post #57

> The steel nail and keratin nail were examined under the 8x loupe and notes were made about their appearances. Gee, a simple metric might've been just to measure the mass of the nail before and after.

Oh I thought of that, but only had access to a simple kitchen scale. The weight of the nail before the experiment didn't even register on it.

Yeah, good call, I think you'd have needed ~1 gram resolution to get anything interesting.
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