# What the hell is "Potash?"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 26, 2025, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436 "2025-01-26T16:25:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2025, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/81 "2025-01-28T17:12:08Z")
> [@Napier](#):
>
> Gutta percha is a plastic fried from tree sap. It’s still sold in toothpick sized tapers called “points”. I just got some Gutta percha points on Amazon to play with.
Gutta percha sounds like something that might have been mentioned in one of the Sherlock Holmes stories, though a quick check of the first concordance I could find doesn’t include it.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2025, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/82 "2025-01-28T17:18:19Z")
Agree. It has that smell of being an old British Empire English term borrowed / corrupted from something they found in India.
Jodhpurs, Gurkhas, and Gutta Percha, oh my!
Not quite as fun as “rum, sodomy, and the lash”, but equally 1800s British.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2025, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/83 "2025-01-28T17:35:25Z")
> [@jnglmassiv](#):
>
> I still catch myself on the long O: poe’-tash
Sounds like it might be a condiment for a po’boy sandwich.
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2025, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/84 "2025-01-28T17:46:59Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#):
>
> I don’t know what it’s used for today.
I was used for early electrical insulation.
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### Author:  [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2025, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/85 "2025-01-28T18:02:16Z")
A few decades before Holmes’s time, Senator Charles Sumner was beaten nearly to death with a gutta percha cane in the Senate chamber before the Civil War. A gutta percha cane suggests it’s a stiff or hard rubber rather than something you make a hose or tubing out of.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2025, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/86 "2025-01-28T18:13:25Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> Wow, that’s a fun cite.
>
> I like the 1.5" cube weighing a kilogram for $200. I especially like the mixed units. Might need to have one of those.
Me, too. But why? I have no idea, but there is apparently some male hormone, possessed even by male pups, that makes them want to own cool heavy shiny objects! 😀
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### Author:  [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2025, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/87 "2025-01-28T21:10:26Z")
I once visited the Long Now Foundation’s workshop in San Francisco where they had some of the parts for their 10,000 year clock on display. One of them was a tungsten pendulum bob, maybe about 4 inches in diameter. I gave it a nudge and it didn’t move. I assumed it was bolted to the table. Then I remembered how dense tungsten is and gave it some more force. I was able to lift it using two hands. It weighed about 25 pounds.
I got kind of fascinated by tungsten after that. I have a 1 inch sphere that weighs about 150 g. I’d like to get a bigger one but it’s hard to justify the cost for something whose only purpose is to be surprisingly heavy.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2025, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/88 "2025-01-28T21:24:12Z")
Wait, doesn’t everyone have a large hunk of tungsten in their household? It’s obviously required for activities. Here’s mine:
[ ](https://imgur.com/Sn24uEp)
Quarter for scale. 50x50 mm cylinder. Weighs about 4 pounds.
> [@markn\_1](#):
>
> I once visited the Long Now Foundation’s workshop in San Francisco where they had some of the parts for their 10,000 year clock on display. One of them was a tungsten pendulum bob, maybe about 4 inches in diameter.
Yeah, that was a nice hunk 'o tungsten. Very satisfying to hold. Dunno if it’s still there.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2025, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/89 "2025-01-28T21:46:51Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#):
>
> Wait, doesn’t everyone have a large hunk of tungsten in their household? It’s obviously required for activities.
Is it testosterone that does this, or is it one of the other androgens, like maybe dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate, androstenedione, or androstenediol? I dunno, but I loves me heavy shiny cubes or cylinders of tungsten, new cars, and new computers!
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### Author:  [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2025, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/90 "2025-01-28T22:32:09Z")
Whatever it is, it is not limited purely to tungsten. I have a magnesium cylinder of identical dimensions (along with a few others, including titanium). It feels like styrofoam in comparison.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2025, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/91 "2025-01-28T23:17:13Z")
All this talk of tungsten calls to mind a course I took in college about Arthurian Romance. I was given to understand that a great warrior knight, Wolfram, wore armor made of tungsten (hence the chemical symbol, W, for Wolframite).
He must have had STR and CON stats of 18 if the specific gravity of tungsten is that high.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2025, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/92 "2025-01-28T23:39:50Z")
You missed the opportunity to call it a “weighted companion cylinder”.
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### Author:  [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2025, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/93 "2025-01-29T00:23:55Z")
According to wiki, Tungsten is one of the oldest steel alloys. Tungsten steel contains 2-18% Tungsten by weight. It is hard but brittle. [Tungsten steel - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tungsten_steel)
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### Author:  [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2025, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/94 "2025-01-29T02:52:43Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> You missed the opportunity to call it a “weighted companion cylinder”
My aluminum weighted companion cube would not forgive me. The silence is palpable as it is.
[ ](https://imgur.com/6iFdtdD)
I machined all my cylinders myself aside from the tungsten. Just don’t have the capability. A tungsten companion cube would be pretty awesome but getting it made would be a challenge (or a huge expense).
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### Author:  [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2025, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/95 "2025-01-29T03:08:28Z")
Here they are, on a dreary day, from Dead Horse Point State Park:
[ ](https://imgur.com/IYu7L6E)
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### Author:  [@ZurBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZurBob)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2025, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/96 "2025-01-29T04:04:06Z")
> [@TriPolar](#):
>
> Kelp was being used at the time to make potash because of a shortage of wood ashes which were being consumed by French and English to make gunpowder
Potash (in the wood ash form) isn’t a component used to manufacture black powder per se.
Saltpeter (KNO^3 or Potassium _Nitrate_) however, is.
Potash _was_ employed to **extract** Saltpeter from the liquor of dung-urine “beds”.
I know…nitpicking.
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### Author:  [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2025, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/97 "2025-01-29T04:22:36Z")
> [@jnglmassiv](#):
>
> Potash was a word I encountered sometimes while reading as a kid but didn’t hear pronounced for many years. Therefore, I had it wrong in my head for a long time and I still catch myself on the long O: poe’-tash
I attended a lecture at law school, dealing with who controlled provincial resources, such as oil and gas, minerals, hydroelectricity, and yes, potash. The lecturer had a strong accent (not sure what it was), and she pronounced it “p-TASH.” Confused a few of my fellow students.
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### Author:  [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2025, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/98 "2025-01-29T06:08:00Z")
> [@Spoons](#):
>
> and she pronounced it “p-TASH.”
I could see that making sense to a reader, short for p’tashium chloride.
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### Author:  [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2025, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/99 "2025-01-29T07:29:05Z")
My first root canal, in 1987, used gutta percha as a tooth filler. When it had to be re-done in 2011, they used a different filler, although I don’t remember what it was.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2025, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/100 "2025-01-29T07:46:01Z")
> [@ZurBob](#):
>
> > [@TriPolar](#):
> >
> > Kelp was being used at the time to make potash because of a shortage of wood ashes which were being consumed by French and English to make gunpowder
>
> Potash (in the wood ash form) isn’t a component used to manufacture black powder per se.
>
> Saltpeter (KNO^3 or Potassium _Nitrate_) however, is.
>
> Potash _was_ employed to **extract** Saltpeter from the liquor of dung-urine “beds”.
>
> I know…nitpicking.
Not exactly. Potash provided the potassium. Dung-urine beds, along with old rotting timbers were used as the source of nitrogen. Potassium Nitrate was produced from those ingredients, which was used in the manufacture of black powder.
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