Fun Note: If you soak an egg in vinegar for a day or two, the calcium carbonate breaks down leaving you an egg in a tough, flexible clear membrane. Much fun.
Get your leg out of the Vinegar!!! FAST!!!
One of the “classic” chemistry experiments is to soak a chicken bone for several days in vinegar, at which point it gets all rubbery. It’s in several of the chem manuals I had as a kid. If it works on chicken bones, it ought to work on people bones.
Note that I said “several days”. And chicken bones are a lot smaller than human bones. I’d soak a human-sized bone for a month or two, and even then I’m not sure the vinegar would percolate all the way through and perform the needed reactions.
You’re gonna want to immerse this in more vinegar than is needed merely to cover, too. Ideally, throw the femur (which is a pretty big bone) in a 55 gallon drum of acetic acid (not as dilute as vinegar, so it’ll work faster).
Whose leg are you goinhg to turn into a gag gift?
Acidic environments will certainly degrade human bone. It would take a pretty long time to decalcify a femur, however, given the volume and density of the lamellar portions. Furthermore it might not ever make a femur soft and rubbery; IMO you’re more likely to end up with flaky bone mush. Chicken bones are better for that sort of thing. If you have a fresh human carcass on your hands that needs disposal, I’m afraid you’ll have to be more creative.
Too late. I just used all the balsamic in the long pork salad.
Using a hacksaw will take less time (if your “situation” is that urgent).
The real “classic” gag is to soak a wishbone in vinegar long enough to make it bend like rubber. You can then either use it as a joke (“Ready? One, two, three, SPROING!”) or tie the ends of the bone into a knot and amaze your friends and neighbors.
Jack? Jack Bauer? It’s been ages!
How’s Teri?
A question about the egg in vinegar thing, if I may: could I keep such an egg indefinitely, or would it eventually disintegrate/go bad? And how would I do that? Just keep it in the jar of vinegar? (I secretly plan to have a mad scientist’s cabinet of various things in jars someday. Such an egg would be a good start, I think.)
My experience with the egg is that it soaks up vinegar and swells. I’ve heard of people putting the softened egg into water for a time until it swells up and eventually bursts. It would probably not spoil though because the vinegar is acidic enough to act as a preservative–you’d pickle the egg.
Just who’s femur are you softening, Inigo Montoya…and what did you do with the rest of him?
And, did it involve…parsley?:eek:;)
He finally found the six-fingered man.
Still dead. :mad:
But your name is awfully suspicious. Come here–I have a few questions for you…
Nice.