Swim found that his Al had to be cleaner than the underside of his fourskin for any chance of a successful amalgamation.
Swim found that if his water washed amalgamated Al was a UNIFORM DARK MATT GREY/UNIFORM MATT BLACK, he was in for a sucessfull reduction.
How he does it:
Swim washes his Al turnings in hot MEOH for 5 min.
then cold water to wash off the meoh.
He then adds fresh cold water roughly 3-4 times the physical ammount of Al.
Carefully adds 20g or so of NaOH, useing lots of stiring to mix, and wash the AL for 5min.
If reaction gets too wild, add cold water.
Wash Al 4x with cold water.
Repeat NaOH wash in a clean container, with lots of stiring.
Wash with clean cold water x 4...Swims AL turnings were a uniform beautiful MATT silver color.
swim pours off most of the water and dumps in some HgSO4 with good inital stiring, then let react. (outside, careful with fumes, splashes etc)
Swim lets this reach it's peak ~20-40 min, scopes sum out, and examins it in good light ; If the Al is UNIFORM DARK MATT GREY or UNIFORM MATT BLACK, Swim washes it x 3 cold H2O, then uses it immeaditly in a reduction.
If the Al is still silver/silvery , patchy grey, or light grey, and it gets used, it fails miserably.
With this partially amalgamated al, swim washes it x4 cold water.
Then he makes a stronger solution of HgSO4 and tries again.
Correctly amalgamated Al rocks, Swim sees his change to an amazing gold color in a reduction!!
