I'm sure most of you remember making "plastic" (it's actually casein in this case, true plastic is polymer composed) from milk, from your middle school chemistry coarse, anyway this material can be useful, though I never thought of it as being suitable for something such as pipe making until briefly reviewing this article...

In the article below making tobacco pipes from casein is discussed.

Though it seems after the casein is derived from milk that it is soaked in formaldehyde...

so, if I took some milk, heated it, mixed the heated milk with acetic acid (vinegar), then filtered this through a strainer collecting the formed solids (casein), which were then soaked in formaldehyde and dried I would have a material suitable for building tobacco pipes?

The formaldehyde soak should make the casein resistant to high heat, though I'm uncertain if this new material is any stronger than the initial casein...

a fascinating and simply available material, I'm thinking I could make pipes, ashtrays, etc...Though this doesn't seem like a very good "long-term" material, it could be used to make wares for sell (I also make jewelry from ayahuasca vines and hemp cord, as well as t-shirts, tie-dyes, and I'm learning how to make dyes from my entheogens, a UV reactive dye from peganum harmala, purple dye from mimosa hostillis, etc...)

so if this casein-formaldehyde is a viable material for producing the type of wares which I support myself with, I think it would be worth looking into...

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(Article)

Casein
Casein, in full casein-formaldehyde, consists as the name suggests of an important part of the milk protein. Casein can be extracted from skimmed milk with a specific enzyme. By exposing the kneadable doughy substance to the liquid formaldehyde for days or even weeks a new material emerges, which will not melt, even at high temperatures.

It is a so-called thermosetting synthetic material, like rubber (semi-synthetic). The patent for the production of this material dates from 1899 and belonged to the Germans Krische and Spitteler. They called the new material Galalith. Later it became known also as Erinoid, Ameroid and Kasolid. Casein can be coloured easily. A drawback of the material is its sensitiveness to liquid. Long-term exposure to liquid makes the material crack.

The pipe-making industry used the material widely till after the Second World War for the production of cigarette pipes (pipettes), as it could easily be pierced, turned or modeled. The long Charleston cigarette pipes of the 1920’s are made of casein.

http://rebornpipes.com/tag/casein/

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-eg

I've been working with the casein, which is more than simple to produce, however it's really only suitable for a few tasks, not a long term material.

To produce casein all you need to do is heat up some milk, stir in some acetic acid (vinegar), and filter out the formed solids, which are then shaped and cured.

Now, if this material is soaked in formaldehyde, for three days to over a week, it becomes casein-formaldehyde, and attains new physical properties, heat resistance being the most notable.

I can pull some strings with a friend at the university to get everything I need set up so that I may produce and experiment with this material safely...however I may not want to go through all the trouble until I know more about the end result, I have other projects which also need lab time, and the casein-formaldehyde pipes prospect is very low priority

... I was curious as to whether the formaldehyde treatment adds any strength to the material, I'm assuming this is the case, however if all I'm doing is producing heat resistant casein, I may need to look into methods for strengthening the material, or I may just abandon the prospect.

-eg

An interesting bit of information regarding casein:



-eg

I finally got promoted so I can post in this thread.

Casein on its own is way to weak and brittle but you can mix it to make it more durable.
Ofc you need some fiber to make it so that it doesnt break into pieces because of the deformation that are caused by drying it.
I need to experiment with it on my own but I think something like. 50% casein, 10% alum salts (KAl(SO4)2), 40% paper fibre would make a nice pipe. The alum salt should turn it into some kind of ceramic.
Because you can fireproof fibre with alum salts.
I actually got alum salts so I can try to make it tomorrow.

Another more complicated way to make it would be casein and calcium acetate.
Then bake it and turn the CaAc to CaO. Then treat it with water to turn the CaO into CaOH and then let it sit on the air for some time for the hydroxide to convert to carbonate.

casein-formaldehyde appears to be durable on its own without fiber supports, though exposure to liquids will cause the material to crack. As far as casein pipe making goes, I feel casein-formaldehyde is the material to work with.

Though other experimentation is interesting, casein is extremely easy to obtain, and thus makes it optimal for independent experimentation

(From my previous post)


Casein-formaldehyde is a viable material for making pipes, and because the casein is so simple to obtain, and because casein-formaldehyde is effortless to produce, it seem like a venture worth looking into, perhaps I could produce disposable casein-formaldehyde pipes, which as the article states color very well, so they would be decorated, and then could be sold for $5 each online or to friends or where ever, this was the initial interest in this material...

Then while browsing through an appendix in the back of TIHKAL I find this piece of information:


carboline production was another worth while area of exploration related to casein, and this is where I left my research in this area, I became distracted with higher priority work and nearly forgot about my interest in casein.



-eg

Glyceraldehyde can be used in place of formaldehyde
https://www.acs.org/cont...lk-protein-and-clay.html

And this seems to indicate how to deal with the water-makes-the-stuff-brittle issue: http://www.google.ca/patents/US2316146

Gonna try wood fibre first.



We can make trippy pipes by making 2 batches and then twisting them together before forming a pipe
Something like the picture i attached.

The bigger problem is not that it is brittle but the fire resitance. I really think it needs over 50% non burnable material or a coating on the inside.

I dont like to waste milk but im going to try it.

Ok I did the following.
1l of milk heated to 50°C added around 100ml of vinegar (20% is mine)
Yield was around 300g slightly damp casein after vacuum filtering.
2 parts casein, 1 part KAl(SO4)2 (Potassium Alum), 1 part Ca(CH₃COO)₂ (Calcium Acetate) mixed.
Had a ball around the diameter of 4cm. I added one paper tower ripped to small 1cm² pieces and kneaded it into the ball. Readded some water to make it better to form.
Formed a pipe by simply turning it into a sausage and then poking a bowl with my thumb into the top.
Poked a hole through the pipe to the mouth end.
Let it dry. To test the heat resitance I blasted a small sample of pure casein next to my mix.
I used a hand torch which goes up to 1500°C

The pure sample turned into a small black puddle.
My mix stayed in pipe form but got burned on the outside. But whats different that instead of falling apart the Calcium Acetate formed CaO and held the pipe. In the picture you can see that next to the black crust a white crust formed which kept the pipe from falling apart and burning further.

This mix might not be 100% heat and fire proof but the pipe does not fall apart and when you slowly heat the bowl without burning it like I did you could make a working pipe with it.

But the casein does make a horrible smelling smoke when heated to much so it might not be the best thing to do.

Maybe if the casein gets mixed 50/50 with plaster of paris one could make a better pipe.

Cant make another one because im on vacation soon.