Hi friends.

Just two simple questions here. Iam doing Marsofold's Tek with naptha on some mhrb; first time.

Question #1
Right after the freeze precipitation in naptha when I shake the frozen jar and pour the now crystal-laden naptha (and, later, the sodium carbonate wash) through a coffee filter I'd instead like to use a piece polyethylene (polyester) woven monofilament mesh. Anyone use something similar to this? A filter more durable than the paper coffee filter?

On amazon they have 12" x 12" and 12x 24" pieces of woven monofilament polyester mesh and nylon mesh. The website says the polyester mesh is "Unaffected by most solvents, Polyester PETP (Polyester, Polyethylene Terephthalate) has good resistance to strong acids at room temperature and resists weak acids and alkalies even at high temperatures; strong alkalies can weaken it. "

Does this sound like it will handle naptha?

The polyester mesh is available in the following sizes:
1μ
5μ
17μ
20μ
27μ
30μ
33μ
40μ
...and many others up from those sizes.


I think coffee filters are about 20μ-35μ. Amazon also has nylon mesh but the polyester mesh has better resistance to chemicals. Thoughts?

Question #2
Is the only drawback of using powdered mhrb in this tek instead of home-shredded material that you get a slightly lower return from the rootbark?
Is it really worth it to shell out more money for shredded bark instead?

The carbonate wash comes before the freeze precip, while the alks are still in the NP.

AFAIK, powdered bark yields as well as, if not more than, shredded bark.

Thanks for the clarification Noman, I reread Vovin's tek and understand what i had wrong after reading your reply. Thank-you very much for the help man, I love your posts.

I also meant to ask all of you if the forum here has a preffered brand for pH papers?

I've used them before, but just wondering if there is one in particular to purchase; I only ask because I've never seen the question come up. It's funny because i use a nice electric one at work, but don't own one. Iam not worried about cost but just don't want to shell out for the electric model.

I don't use them or a meter for mimosa extractions. A/Bs have a clear visual indication and they're irrelevant for STB's.
The more complex procedures may be a different story though.

Well, your advice is good enough for me, so I'll learn doing it this way.

However, if I try Vovin's Tek later, upon succesfully completing a different A/B extract with fewer steps, the step in particular I was concerned about with Vovin's Tek is Step 2: Extraction where hydrochloric acid is used to make a soak. It sounds like a good idea to measure the solution in this step, perhaps. Still not sure where to get hydrochloric though.

But for the time being Iam going to go with your advice. Thanks again for your help.

Yes, if you're using HCl, you definitely need to check your pH. My bad, I was assuming that you were using vinegar.

Cool. For the time being Iam just using vinegar, and that's what the original post is referencing- your advice was helpful.