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Primo Levi told a similar story about tracking down the source of a lacquer recipe when he was working at a paint factory. There was a point in the recipe wher
by dkarl 9y ago
Primo Levi told a similar story about tracking down the source of a lacquer recipe when he was working at a paint factory. There was a point in the recipe where the instructions called for adding half an onion into the vat of lacquer. As a chemist, he was fascinated by this because he could not think of any way the chemicals in the onion, in that quantity, could affect the end product. He eventually found a retired employee living nearby who was able to explain that the onion was used to check the temperature of the lacquer. When the onion started to bubble, the mixture was hot enough to proceed to the next step. By the time Primo Levi was working at the plant in the 1940s, the plant had upgraded to modern equipment with integrated temperature gauges, but the onion remained in the recipe.
- IgorPartola 9y agoThat's very clever. Reminds me of doing plumbing with copper piping and using bread to stuff the pipes before soldering them in order to not have the leftover water flowing to where you are soldering, making it impossible.
- tonyarkles 9y agoYou're a genius. Absolutely. That's such a good solution! I had considered using a rag or something, but I was concerned about it getting stuck around a bend, as well as the awkwardness of rolling it up just right. If you overheat the pipe, the bread will just burn off harmlessly, and if it gets stuck, you could just turn the water on and it'll dissolve it or pop it out. Thank you. There's an awkward pipe in my bathroom whose shut-off won't quite close enough. My wife will be so thrilled.
- IgorPartola 9y agoOh I’m no genius. This was a trick someone told me after I spent 6 hours on a single horizontal joint. (Fortunately?) I haven’t had a chance to try it. I also don’t know what would happen if the bread headed straight for your water heater. But aside from that, I do think this is a valuable trick. Hope it works for you!
- tonyarkles 9y agoLuckily, the joint I've got to deal with, the worst case is that the bread would end up inside the faucet and might require a bit of cleaning. Seems like just running some water through it aught to dissolve the bread and let things carry on. I'll use crappy white bread to make sure it's easily dissolvable :)
- dredmorbius 9y agoCue: the forgetting curve. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16534480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16534480 (It applies not just to recent learning, but institutional and cultural memories as well.)