Making bakelite plastic (Part 1) 

"I tried several times to get it to explode" got to love these chemists.

"If someone gave this to me and said nothing, I would probably try to eat it" -Nile 2017

Bakelite pool balls are pure auditory perfection.

"With great difficulty, I jammed it back into the mold" _UPSIDE DOWN_

When I took industrial hygiene, my teacher showed us a formaldehyde detector and told us that he'd demonstrate it but that there's not likely any formaldehyde nearby us. I raised my hand and asked if there was any bakelite nearby, because that should have formaldehyde. He was surprised that I knew about that and said that he had a battery case or something made of black bakelite. So we set the monitor next to it and it worked! It detected a little bit of formaldehyde!

When I was in junior high I was really into chemistry and there was a chemistry book in the school library that had all sorts of dangerous experiments (mercury, nitric acid, fireworks) including making bakelite. This was back in the 70's.

wait... I have a bakalizer like thing!

And Good ol AK pattern magazines ;)

NileRed: is chemist Also NileRed: jams bakelite back into mold in the **wrong orientation**

Even though it's an early form of synthetic material, Bakelite has a certain tactile and visual quality that modern plastics just haven't got. I remember that it had a strong smell though.

"Release Bakelite into all passages and pipes up to Section 803!" I know I'm not the only one...

Bakelite was also used to make Kalashnikov style magazines due to it being cheaper than steel and more durable than aluminum.

Cody will surely enjoy using his pressure chamber as a bakelizer !

I spaced out for a bit and had a good chuckle when he said "I turned off the toaster." Never thought a toaster would be used in science lol

6:17 You're in Canada. The chemicals are too nice to react violently.

If you wish to revisit this, you should be able to build a workable bakerlizer(sp) using a steel 'pressure pot' of the type used for paint sprayers. Mine has a working pressure of 80 psi(And according to steam tables, should be good at keeping water from boiling below about 160c) and has a silicon seal that should hold well with the heat. Do be careful do to the whole 'steam explosion' risk if you wish to go down this path. :)

@NileRed I find myself 50 yo and I still remember many things that were made of bakelite. In my grandmother's house, the telephone, the wall sockets (outlets) and parts of her toaster were made from bakelite, for instance. All things made of bakelite I remember were coloured black. They all shared one aspect, they would break easily.. the bakelite used for them was hard, but brittle - it would not live up to any kind of impact. I always thought that that was just what bakelite was like, that it was an unavoidable sort of imperfection of the kind of material. Watching your video however makes me wonder if that brittleness actually rather was due to the amount of fillers that the producents of all those things put into it. I can imagine that using fillers would make it much cheaper to produce things that were made of bakelite. And, if I understand correctly, it was already put under pressure to cure it in the forms used - which also would have made it very easy to fill them up with a powdery filler first, then flood make that filler and make it absorb a much lower amount of the actual bakelite whilst still in liquid form. And when it was cured its surfaces would be as smooth as the insides of the forms that were used were, and you totally wouldn't be able to tell by sight that any fillers were in it anyway. .. until you actuality broke the household item that it most likely was what they made, and even then you'd only be able to tell be cause of the grainy inner structure that now got exposed. You think that is how it was, or were other effects causing these properties? And thank you by the way!

Fun fact: Bake lite was used as furniture for many firearms back in the day, especially popular in the Soviet union. It proved much more tough, wear resistant and weatherproof than wood. however, although very hard, when bakelite breaks it fractures in extremely jagged an sharp edges. It was removed from firearm furniture in no small part due to soldiers getting impaled by their weapons if they fell on them the wrong way...

Novolacs sounds like a drug Ask your doctor if Novolax is right for you.

While bakelite has been phased out of popular use, its usefulness in containing rogue Eva Units cannot be understated.

Thank you. I can see that you spent a lot of time researching, doing the chemical experiments, taping, editing, ... Your efforts are _much_ appreciated.

When Seele try to invade HQ and reach terminal dogma

I love how I was thinking "hmmmm I'd like to see how bakelite is made. Oh! I bet Nile has probably made some before" and sure enought here we are!

Wow, never realized just how complex a molecular structure Bakelite is.

Brilliant, I have an old Bakelite radio. The history and chemistry of plastic is fascinating.

Bakelite has such a lovely color

They cover Eva unit 01 with this In end of evangelion I think

Bakelite was used a lot for weapons right after they replaced wood furniture and before polymers took over, the FAL and G3 among some examples used it

Could've tried putting it in a pressure cooker.

your stuff helps in Chem classes, thanks dude

It's been a while since I've had the chance to sit down and watch your videos, but I'm really happy to see you doing polymers! Especially something like Bakelite, which isn't covered nearly enough.

bakelite moulding reminds me so much of the old way curing bakes of ceramics , there defiantly an guild art to two methods

*me knowing what mole means..... "im something of a scientist myself"

Bakelite just makes me think of my grandmas ☺️ They had all sorts from combs to jewelry to toilet roll holders ! Everything was bakelite!! I hated it, it was always so ugly, but at the same time I miss it because I miss my gmas

It's still used for subway train brake pads here. You can smell it each time the train does air braking at speed, normally dynamic braking is used

I have a very old music box modeled to look like a piano; it is brass with a bakelite cover. It is absolutely stunning!

During a Properties of Materials course I took, we pressed steel samples into bakelite pucks with one face showing. with the larger size of the puck we spent a long time polishing the steel until the grains of the steel were visible under a microscope

Thanks,this was very interesting! You must have spent a lot of time on making this video. I liked the in depth presentation of the mechanisms. Keep up the good work!

i never liked chemistry before watching your videos man, thanks

I have always wanted to make bakelite but I have never found a very good synthesis of it. thank you so much :)

I remember when I was a kid, the bicycles had handles of this and 2 of my cousins would set those handle on fire on parked bikes. Bad boys.

As someone who's just started working in a plastic factory this is very informative and interesting

"joolery"... interesting video and excellent voice over quality. Your mastery of chemistry is very respectable.

Dude,the heart shaped item was perfect, duel colour in one process! As the Bee Gees once said "You should be dancing, YEA!" Of course cheap jewellery was not your mission statement, but still....As always, stellar content. Love from the UK.

Use a pressure pot. I’m a dental technician and when I do acrylic repairs(Methylmethacrylate monomer/polymer) monomer liquid and powder. When I do a dental repair I put it in a pressure pot. You can control the temperature and of course pressure. By putting my repairs in the pressure pot it would heat it up to cure it but also the pressure would make sure no porosity(bubbles) in the acrylic. There are some really nice and fancy ones but the one we use it’s pretty cheap I mean you can find them for like $50-$100 probably at Walmart or something. I don’t know if that’s the same thing as that cool device that guy made but it just heated it up and then pressurized it sounds to me like a pressure pot that has a adjustable temperature gauge that I use at work for the exact purpose of curing acrylic and avoiding porosity. Maybe check it out. Love your videos!!!!! Long time fan

Nice video! I've done this reaction with resorcinol back then, which is less toxic than phenol, but it also puffed up.

Did anyone else have like... Yugioh PTSD when he said Polymerisation?

"If somebody handed me this and said nothing, I would probably try to eat it." Nile... 🤦🏻‍♀️

Bakelite is one of those products that isn't made as much anymore but is actually higher quality than what is currently being used instead. Since it isn't as soluable it holds up more than other polymers. Actually, a lot of people test to see if their thrift store jewelry finds are bakelite by swiping some acetone on the surface. Modern plastics will melt while bakelite is uneffected. Since "vintage" bakelite is worth a bit of money as lots of people collect it, this is worth testing for say an eBay/etsy seller. I find this concept fascinating since putting plastic in acetone is one of my favorite things to do... I make jewelry and sometimes redesign cheap costume jewelry. The easiest way to get cheap plastic rhinestones/cabochons out of a metal bezel is just to drop it in a bowl of acetone and it's just really cool to watch or to repeatedly poke the melting plastic with a toothpick.

Sweet! There was a lot of bakelite around when I was young, now of course not so much. I've known what it is and how it was made for many years, but have never had a chance until now to actually see the process performed.

I just bought some cheap electrical switches made of soft plastic that melted when I tried soldering the metal connection tabs. Since the switch can fail, I will not use them except for low current and voltage applications, far less than the switches "rating." The old bakelite switches are really durable. Always wondered how it was made.

Whenever I want to sleep i watch one of your videos, I don't know what it is but your voice just calms me

DANG! TWO VIDEOS IN ONE DAY? WHAT IS THIS! :) :)

You and Cody's lab should try this in his pressure vessel.

Great Job as always.Enjoyed watching it.

We still produce bakelite on work to this day. One of my favourite products to work on!

I thought pool balls were made from a ceramic or something. my life is a lie

NileRed - if you want to turn your toaster oven in to a temperature controlled environment then you may want to look in to getting toaster over temperature controllers for surface mount printed circuit board production. I've used one for PCB prototyping for a few years and they work surprisingly well. The toaster modification is a temperature controller that keeps the oven within a defined range instead of an arbitrary numeric "heat" level that you can calibrate quite accurately. They're not hard to make if you don't want to buy one either, plenty of DIY projects around.

bakelite was used for ak rifle magazines for a long time, properly tough stuff even today.

Great video. It made me realise how long it has been since I studied organic chemistry, and how much I miss it.

Gun Nuts Mind: Bakelite => Ak Mags...

It's also the only substance capable of safely containing an angel in stasis... Yes, I'm that old!

If I'm remembering what I was told, this stuff was also used in combination with cloth wiring. The house my friends and I just moved out of had cloth wiring throughout, so I learned a bit about it while I was there. The bakelite would crumble away, and of course cloth rots as well, leaving live wires exposed to each other.

That shatter looks fire!!

nile, you should know not to eat candy from strangers

Is it bad that after I heard him say polymerization, I heard the rest of that sentence like a card effect?

these videos are so damn perfect to fall asleep to thanks you NR

Bakelite is still used to this day. For ex my desktop CNC has bakelite in its frame. It is tremendously rigid and good for such applications that need precision mechanics.

No Bakelizer -> Use pressure cooker filled with brine?

i like how nile red tried thrice to have a violent reaction nobody would want

I did a full report on the history of polymers. Very interesting how much stuff and how many jobs it fit into and replaced, like horners, people who worked with heating animal horn or crushing it into pulps to form complex items like combs, piano keys, etc, was eventually taken over by people who worked with natural rubbers and bakelite.

I love the Nile red and blue videos, just wish the other parts for the multi-part videos were linked in the description.

"My phenol is a little bit dirty" giggity.

12:52 Is the center... NILE RED?

Bakelite still used in some applications that require high heat resistance and good electrical insulation properties such as vehicle ignition components and electrical outlets.

Me, watching these videos, after failing chemistry: I like your words. Magic man.

That is so fascinating - to see a solid object/mass form from a mixture of various liquid chemicals... I know this isn't the only reaction that does something like that, but the entire concept is captivating. Chemistry is like the closest thing to real, actual magic in my opinion. I want to learn chemistry. I'm thinking about going back to college for pharmacology and either dual majoring or minoring in chemistry (since my IT degree has not worked out at all). But even if I don't go back to college, I still want to learn chemistry on my own. Are there any good authoritative/concise/in-depth/free resources for learning chemistry? Maybe that could help if I did decide to take chemistry classes too.

1 Canada leaf 2 melted grape jellyrancher 3 offbrand Valentines candy

My guy Nile is like a wizard Internet: ... Nile: Here have some plastic

i like how the yellower one looked like a heart and had red in the middle, it's almost poetic lol

I don't suppose you could you could do something related to textile dye synthesis? There are a lot of colourful compounds but few make good use as dyes.

I would love to see you making celluloid from nitrocellulose and camphor!

LOL, aint gonna lie i thought of dabs when you were getting the resin out the beaker lol, great video

I feel like it would be fun to see this revisited in Nile's new lab, to see if he could give it the full bakelizer-style treatment.

Every time I heard polymerisation I thought of Yu-Gi-Oh 😂

14:30 Do you have a pressure cooker? That might be helpful.

I have a ton of Bakelite and a bakalizer is a scaled up version of the thing people use to make kettle corn

Yummy, I gotta try this candy recipe...

Oh man, am I hyped for making bakelite! Really appreciate the ammount of work you put into your videos, i love them! Just one question: You did already show how to make things, that could be used as pigments for paint (you did basic cooper carbonate). Could you please do a short video about another pigment? For example prussian blue or since you love mercury so much cinnabar (HgS)? I would really love that! Greetings from Germany!

Nile, do you have your PhD in chemistry? I'd be interested in watching a video about your actual chemistry background.

Fun gun fact, the MP40, a German WWII submachine gun, used bakelite grips. Though, the grips were disliked as they were uncomfortable. This led to the grips being swapped into wooden ones.

I have a soviet era bakelite AK magazine. Love the look.

bakalizer, aka Pressure cooker

can't you use a pressure cooker to keep water from boiling?

Once, I had made a weird resin thing by dissolving great stuff expanding foam in acetone... formed a hard resinous plastic, that I assume is just what expanding foam is without the bubbles.

Nile Red: I don't have a Bakealyzer Me: Do you have a Pressure Cooker?

Would a pressure cooker work, or is there something different going on in a bakalizer?

Hey Nile, I´m watching your videos since over 1,5 years and have never commented one. But now I´m going to do it. I really like your videos and pretty much all of them are really interesting. I got a question for this one: what would happen, if you do it under vacuum and only slowly heat it? Would it be possible for the water to escape at much lower temperature when the stuff is still liquid? or wouldnt it polimerize enough? I could guess, if you heat it faster, the bubbling problem will get much bigger, but I´m not sure. And for the high pressure method: does the formed water stay in the plastic, or does it get removed in some way? Greetings from a Bachelor chemistry student in 6. Semester.

ur first bakelite sponge thingie looks like the first cookies i baked. lmao

I worked across from a factory that was union carbide Bakelite factory in NJ. It has become a rock salt and chemical facility.