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Comment by jjeaff | Hacker News Reader

Of course, caution is always warranted when dealing with HF. However, I don't see any reason why it can't be safely used at home. In fact HF is found in lots of commonly used household cleaning products like rust and stain removers.

Plenty of people are using Goof Off Rust remover and are not dropping dead later in the day.

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Oh man.. you need to talk to those who have worked with the stuff..

The amount in household products is essentially zero and one drop of the pure stuff and you are gone..

this stuff is nightmare material, i know, i have worked with and around it.

70% pure accident..

PFF http://www.ehs.ucsb.edu/files/docs/ls/HF_fatality.pdf

HTML http://www.geo.utexas.edu/geosafety/hf-accident.html

10% strength MSDS

HTML http://www.kendon.com.au/Catalogue/MSDS/Industrial/10%25Hydr...

Thanks for the links. Seems like anyone in the right mind, would not deal with this, in anything other than a professional lab setting.

Even then, you can only work with it in teams of at least 2, all being certified to work with HF, only during normal business hours, and with a safety checklist a mile long, which includes checking to see that the calcium gluconate in the emergency kit is unopened and unexpired, and there are extra gloves with it, so the person applying it to you does not also get poisoned just by touching you.

That reminds me of why I decided against buying a portable sawmill. The nice ones come with an amputation kit, so when you cut something off accidentally there's a tourniquet on hand to slow the bleeding.

This comment is misinformed and should be deleted because it is so dangerous. HF will kill you for looking at it in the wrong way; please don't handle it unless you understand the danger it poses to you and the people around you.

Why is this comment misinformed? In a video tour of his home lab, Sam Zeloof shows us his acid-storage cabinet and mentions that he gets HF from over-the-counter Whink-brand "Rust Stain Remover"[1].

Since this product is commonly available at hardware stores across the United States, why should comments related to it "be deleted because it is so dangerous"?

I agree that HF can be extremely dangerous, but in this case it's not clear that Sam is working with or advocating use of dangerous concentrations or chemcial forumulations of fluorine-based acids. Maybe I missed a post where he does discuss using more dangerous concentrations or compounds?

[1] https://youtu.be/TrmqZ0hgAXk?t=538

Goof Off MSDS: https://goofoffproducts.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/RustB...

Good to see the (not so out of place) note about conc HF. They claim <0.5%. I would treat it with respect. Getting it on your skin is a bad idea.

That's akin to saying water-guns aren't very dangerous therefore shotguns are safe to play with.

Water guns are far more dangerous than shotguns given the things you can put into them.

Like, for example, HF.

I hope your "water gun" is made entirely of polypropylene, neoprene, polytetrafluoroethane, polyvinyl fluoride, wax, lead, and/or polyethylene.

And that you're wearing a chemical protection suit with respirator while playing with it. And that you are well aware of wind and weather conditions. And that you take care to keep it out of the environment.

Seems like one of those things that would be more dangerous to the wielder than anyone else.

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