I have, once again, found myself at the helm of a DIY lab, this one with a chemical wetlab focus. I’m sure this will provide lots of material in the future; right now, I want to share a protip I came up with the other night. I have been using soda can alcohol stoves for heat, but this isn’t always appropriate. You can’t heat flammable mixtures, and they leave soot on my glassware. But I don’t have a hotplate yet! What’s a gutterpunk labnerd to do?

Don’t forget the boiling chips!

It’s won’t spin a stir bar, but a clothes iron will do fine as a hotplate! You can see that I’ve secured this one to the lab bench with wood and a clamp for extra stability.