plastics

Water free/anhydrous or glacial acetic acid is notoriously difficult to prepare on a non-industrial scale from more dilute forms of the acid. It is also rather unpleasant stuff. However some clues can be found here:

https://www.sciencem...d.php?tid=12898

Unfortunately as you will see most use sodium acetate as the starting point

This begs the question why do you need glacial acetic acid at all; why not use your more dilute form

Most people making basic non-organic nitrates/sulphates etc don't use 100% fuming nitric acid or oleum as their raw materials

I too am fairly new - started last summer. Doors do open after a bit of looking around on the net and lots of background reading. There is a thread on this forum about obtaining materials. I read every post and that started me off. Obviously perfecting and understanding your own BP is a critical step. I quickly went from grinding and screening to a ball mill. Nothing too fancy - cast all the lead media myself (not recommended it stinks and kills your neurons). Now, as the real experienced guys will tell you, I need to build something myself a bit more durable that can handle larger quantities.

It does sound like your oxidiser is a bit suspect although green BP is not necessarily the easiest to light - so don't expect miracles. It does matter what sulphur and especially what charcoal you use

If you are in any doubt about the usefulness of a ball here is a little compilation I made a couple of weeks ago comparing milling times. I started with KNO3 that resembled table salt, sulphur and willow charcoal (all from forum members). I think the results speak for themselves. In the last sequence my hand is shaking because a 'test' just before had taken the hairs off my forearm. Another critical piece of advice - play safe

Motartube that is rip off pricing, I got my 25kg bag for 20 quid and even that is expensive.

I know there is a certain reluctance to reveal ones sources but this bragging about how cheap one can obtain x y and z annoys me intensely. If you can get it that cheap tell us where from and those of us that can will do so keeping the price low. If you're not prepared to reveal your source (either to preserve their anonymity or some perverse paternalistic idea of keeping us safe from the uninducted masses) then keep quiet. If a supplier is concerned about the integrity of the person they're supplying to they can always say no.

Sorry about the rant but all this talk of my car can go faster than yours doesn't really help anyone

Hmm

I have a direct url to their chems list and this works fine. If I go via .co.uk I get redirected to a .com and am then asked if I want to download 'Remote Data Services Data Control' from Microsoft. Not sure what this is, but if I decline the main page opens with some empty frames

As a private individual I have not had any trouble buying 1l quantities of 98% sulphuric and concentrated (37%) HCl online. One company supplied it without asking a reason, to the other I said 'general laboratory reagent' and this was enough. In all cases they were delivered by courier (Citylink/TNT) and the carriage cost more than the product (conc sulphuric can be got for about £7 - 10 for a litre before carriage). You might get asked a few questions if attempting to buy conc sulphuric and conc nitric together. Most commercially available conc nitric is the azeotrope (68 - 70%) which can be broken by distilling with conc sulphuric as a dehydrating agent. I have personally synthesised/distilled red fuming nitric acid. It is seriously nasty stuff dissolving or igniting anything it comes into contact with whilst releasing toxic nitrogen dioxide and acid vapour for good measure. To distill/isolate it 'safely' you need some quite expensive all glass quickfit apparatus as it will eat anything else. If you want to isolate it without excess nitrogen dioxide (white fuming nitric acid) it needs to be distilled under reduced pressure - not something for the faint hearted. I have not come across anywhere that supplies RFNA or WFNA to private individuals/addresses