Homemade Soxhlet Thimble Ideas?

[Bubbleplate]

Anyone have ideas on how to whip up something that could be used as a Soxhlet Extractor Thimble? The two extractors SWIM has measure approx. 5" long x 1 3/4" diameter and 5" x 1 1/4".
TIA

[PolytheneSam]

I've used a layer of cotton in the bottom a couple times.  One time I tried using a sock with some poppy seeds.
http://www.geocities.com/dritte123/PSPF.html
The hardest thing to explain is the obvious

[Lilienthal]

Maybe several layers of a fine wire screen like in tee sieve but finer?

[metwurst]

I've not seen a soxhlet thimble in real life, but from the pictures they look just to be a porous diaphragm. If you're patient, you could make one from thick aluminium foil with a sewing needle.

[Osmium]

Baggy made from tissue or filter paper, or t-shirt cloth.

Real thimbles are made from the same material (cellulose). They look like someone dipped the round end of a big test tube into some paper pulp a few times.
I'd use a big sheet of filter paper, place a pile of the stuff to be extracted in the middle, fold all paper together and tie it shut with a piece of wire.

There are also thimbles made from glass fibers, or thimbles made from a glass tube with a sintered glass disk on one end, but you only need them when you have to work under anhydrous conditions. For most purposes the cellulose ones are fine.
I'm not fat just horizontally disproportionate.

[Kinetic]

...and hijack this thread, will a cellulose thimble work with the ethanol/black pepper extraction posted by 3base?

[GOD]

make a thimble out of canvas or silk
remember: if your gonna use any materials that have been used with other detergents (clothes, rags etc...) make sure to give it a good wash'n without any soap etc.  Swim can just see himself doing something like this (forgetting about soap scum) and wondering where the crud is coming from...

[CherrieBaby]

Kinetic

Those cellulose thimbles are expensive. You don't need one. a white cotton sock sounds like a good idea. Or some other very fine material - could you sew one together. Just don't use artificial polymers.

Cellulose can, of course, be used because it is not soluble in any organic solvents. It is only soluble in enzymes or concentrated acid and alkali.

[former_chemist]

Cellulose degrades in contact with ketones.  Filter paper probably won't stand up very well to hot acetone.  Fiberglass cloth should be used if you want to avoid spillage.  Cellulose shouldn't be a major source of contaminants but your thimble breaking might cause problems.

[Prdy2GO]

Well Here is a secret on the Soxlet extraction thimple.
Use the large coffee filters the bigones that come in bulk cheep.
Find a bottle or can to use as a form that fits inside the extractor body.
get a bowl and with water wet the filters one at a time and place them in the bowl with waterso they flatten out and are seperated and flat. Place one dead center over the form if only one is used then use a peice dental floss mold and tie it in place and let it dry. after it is dry. IT will hold it's shape use more than one if you need to go in a spyral pattern to sdd length.

WTF is that smell... It keeps following me.