So your point of view is that I have not learned anything out of college about chemistry. Does that come from personal experience? I cannot imagine that you worked for years in a Kodak research lab and did not learn anything you did not know when you started. I learned more about aeronautical engineering after I started at NACA than I did at WVU and I went on to make original contributions. What I learned in College was how to learn.
That said, why do you think that a product intended for so many uses, including eyedrops, face and hand creams...tell the truth: you have not bothered to look up all the recommended and actual uses of 20 Mule Team borax, have you? Almost any one of these personal care uses would detect the sort of things that would keep it from being useful in photography.
I contend you do not know the true, or at least the traditional meaning of the word "engineer". I have tested the requirements for accuracy of all the developers and other solutions where I have used volumetric measurements of solids, and have proposed methods for making them consistent. I have used them in cases of "put up or get out" and have many autographed photos of great artists of the music and dance world to show that I put up, in action, not posed situations.
Patrick;
You have missed the point entirely.
I learned chemistry in college and learned how to learn, then I spent 32 years or more doing quantitative lab work on photography becoming a photographic engineer.
You learned engineering in college and learned how to learn, then spent X years doing aeronautical engineering. But, you did not spend that time doing photographic engineering or chemistry as a profession!
My background does not qualify me to design airplanes even though I know the theory of their operation. So, any advice I give in this regard would be less authoritative than yours.
My comments here are given in the sense that I'm trying to "teach" things to be done in the right way and point out the potential pitfalls and I think so is Kirk. You appear to be dismissing our advice, which is based on our years of experience, as being unnessesary and essentially trivializing it.
The comment that I don't know about the uses of borax is rather gratuitous.
We kept eye cups with borax solution in all labs in case of splashes of some bad chemicals to the eyes. That was discontinued and the cups were replaced with eye wash stations.
I also know that borax is toxic to citrus fruit trees, and that it is used as a poison for cockroaches. You forgot those two. Most importantly, it is very toxic to children and ingestion of even a small amount can be fatal. Therefore the roach tablets have to be carefully placed in a 'roach motel' type container.
So, those using borax salts for any reason should make sure that they are well out of the reach of children.
PE
