Thanks, I was wondering about that whole numb lips thing. I didn't really see how it would even be possible for lye to be present in the naptha after separation. That numbness was probably my biggest concern when actually smoking the crystals. (Well, aside from fear of accidentally trading my soul in a raw deal with "demons" from another dimension. Or that time when I was "torn apart" by barbed/hooked tendrils while being mocked by a dark swirling cloud of evil entities. Or that other time when something did something to my chest and then started crawling around under the flesh in the side of my head!) Going off topic, sorry.

Lye can get in the final product just from sloppy seperation. The lye/water mix has a tendency to cling to stuff (like glass), and it can take a while to figure out the best ways to seperate it cleanly. I like using the injection style turkey basters. Basically just like a big syringe. Suck the naptha up and if you pull some lye it settles to the bottom rapidly and can be squirted back out. Works like a charm.[/quote]

apparently the cracking point of glass is much lower than the melting point of lye.