In the u.s. Its illegal to own a separatory funnel & ebay is sketchy for chem equipment. Lots of cops & illegal activity being reported. So, ive been looking for an alternative to a separatory funnel & came across a perfect candidate on accident thats completely insonspicuous. It may need some modifications to work propperly but the shape is right & has a glass plug similar to a stopcock.

They are called glass empoli bottles.

empoli bottle

Apparently these are actually decanter bottles & are quite expensive

Why is it illegal to own a separatory funnel in the United States? Do you have a legal/law number for the law you referring to? You could always use a perfectly legal to own glass gravy separator instead. Should work just as well.
http://www.amazon.com/Ku...-Separator/dp/B000VZAYTG

If it were illegal to own a separatory funnel in the United States, they would not be available on eBay, Amazon, or Science websites primarily directed at teachers and (young) students.

It could however be considered illegal if it were discovered by law enforcement along with sufficient evidence to prove it is being used to produce illegal materials. The same goes for any other piece of chemistry equipment.

Police are trained to smash them on sight, and legitimate chemists have had equipment destroyed at home. Unfortunately, something may as well be illegal when there is no legal recourse to adverse police state action.

I am inclined to doubt that this is the case in every single state, county, and city in the United States. Perhaps this is true in some jurisdictions, but I would be surprised to discover that it was true nationwide.

Odds are, if you are raided for growing/extracting illegal substances, you will have your equipment (and personal items) destroyed or at least majorly ransacked. And you will lose it, regardless, as it will be confiscated as evidence.

So, whether or not they will or will not "smash on sight" is kind of academic and irrelevant, even if ACAB and they frequently do destroy personal property, whether or not it is departmentally-sanctioned.

I found in order for me to use a sep funnel I would also need a vacuum filtration setup to remove the plant matter efficiently from the liquid without sacrificing product and time. So you would need a sep funnel, sep funnel stand ( diy or bought ), buchner funnel, filters, hand pump, beaker with sidearm, and plastic tube for hand pump. To avoid this I just bought a pipette and a pipette pump. This allows me to leave the bottom layer filled with plant material to some degree and still safely remove the top layer. If the pump isn't attached to the pipette sitting in a box with kitchen utensils or something I'm sure it won't draw too much attention. It's also cheap enough that you could buy a new one each time if your real paranoid.

I was referring to the idea of police officers being trained to smash separatory funnels on sight, regardless of whether they appear to have been used for illicit purposes or not. I was not doubting the fact that if LEO has reason to believe you are doing something illegal with it, they will almost certainly confiscate/destroy your separatory funnel.

A little story but still only 1 personal experience. First I have had no trouble with ordering science equipment on the bay. A sep funnel, distillation equip, stirrer ect. I also had the great luck of getting in trouble for cannabis while I had a semi botched project still set up on the kitchen counter. They did take samples of the liquid and questioned me about meth production (they tried to get me to admit the red color was phosphorus for meth production-of course it wasnt) but I had a story (true-just not for this particular project) of making chloroform to do extractions with cannabis since it is great solvent to use, from studies, just never got that far with it.

They also called someone in the know (?) as I sat in their car to confirm my possible chloroform story. It was about the time of the Casey Anthony story but they showed little interest in it after they checked the facts and whoever they called confirmed it was possible.. I guess the web was loaded with chloroform stories at that point. They also tried to get me to admit that my pedros were peyote, hahaha. Obviously not that informed on the subject but of course they were not "peyote" and I would admit nothing about their use at all other than garden specimens.

I did get in trouble for too many plants which they destroyed all of them not just the extras ( 2" seedlings in a tray counted) but they left all my science equipment and lights and growing equipment alone, which of course I am very thankful for. Id deffinately suggest washing and putting all equipment away asap when you are done with it, but how was I to know? Otherwise you are probably very safe owning equipment but again id keep it separate from certain projects, substances, or anything that may look like you are doing something that you should not.

if you can order a rotary evaporator on ebay, you could certainly order a sep funnel.

the laws are different in every state, and states seldom enforce them without probable cause.

How would you use that as a sep funnel?

When the layers separate you simply pour out the bottom layer. Depending on where you are in your extraction and if the goods are in the polar or non-polar layer determines if you discard the bottom layer or keep it. Gravy separators are pretty awesome if you don't like decanting.

I like this style because it drains from the very bottom but since it isn't all glass it wouldn't be very useful in most extractions.

I might buy one for the kitchen though.

http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=60936

I read this & it freaked me out a bit. I was under the impression that lab equipment was illegal to own without a permit anywhere in the u.s.
Seemed like it might have been true to me. Ive run across stranger laws.

I dont know why you'd go that far. Maybe with an stb youd need all that but i always do an a/b extraction & end up with clear, clean liquid i extract on.
I just brew like i would aya, reduce, let settle in fridge a few days, egg white tek, let settle again, & then pipette off the clear layer & extract from that, saving the small bit of good liquid & sediment for a later extraction to pick up any actives trapped.

Sep. Funnel would work nicely for me.

Someone posted something on the internet that wasn't true? Crazy times we are living in.

Seriously though, the vast majority of lab equipment in the United States isn't used for making illegal drugs and isn't illegal (on a federal level anyway, who knows about crazy state or local laws). Where you run in to trouble is trying to buy precursors that are commonly used to make illegal drugs or something obviously shady like a pill press.

probaly should have looked intp that a little better lol.
That deffinately makes things a lot easier though so thanks to everyone who corrected that rumor for me

legal talk aside, the equipment 0 have come to prefer even more so than a gravy seperator or even a sep funnel, is the combo of a graduated cylinder i believe they are called, and a glass syringe, o have gotten very clean separation with these tools further more om ussually trying to collect the top layer and it seems silly to procces all the bottom material to get to the top material...also many sep funnels have plastic in the switch device and if they dont they often are prone to leakyness which is also undesireable ime...

Thats why I never bothered with the sep funnel. I figured it would be huge mess cleaning up the soup even after it have drained out. It would be all over the place inside the funnel. A syringe is much easier.

You said it yourself in the second sentence; difference in which tek is used could dictate the need to use different equipment. Several of the popular teks involve separating of layers without having removed plant material first, all of these steps cannot use a sep funnel unless you take the extra time to process the bottom layer. Different plant material can make processing this bottom layer a true pain, like powdered bark.

I have had great luck and better results using a 25 ml pipette and little bit nicer than bottom level bulb. I got 2 pipettes and the bulb for around 30$ from the jungle sounding place