On Mon, 14 Jan 2019 11:38:06 -0800 (PST), wrote:

I've learnt something today. I wasn't aware that paying a tenth
the price for a better & entirely customisable product was a
form of wizardry. Nor that it wasted time or money.

I have a book "Fortunes in Formula" (1939). 853 pages and 10,000
formulas. It has just about everything one might want from cleaning
formulas to medical concoctions. It has served me well over the
years. Unfortunately, it uses the "common" names for chemicals. For
example:
aqua fortis = nitric acid
horn silver = sliver chloride
oil of vitriol = sulphuric acid
sugar of lead = lead acetate
verdigris = copper acetate
The medical preparation section uses the Latin names for everything.
Decoding the formulas does require an extra step in translation, but
is survivable.

A recent example of home chemistry is my annual problem with moss
growing on my wood outside stairs. The moss turns to slime when the
light and temperature is right, making my stairs rather hazardous.
I've been using the overpriced commercial preparation, which works,
but not very well. This year, I decided to try something from the
book, which turned out to be a vinegar, washing soda, salt, and water
preparation. It didn't work well in my sprayer, but it worked much
better than anything else I've dried with a scrub brush and garden
hose. My guess is I saved about $40 by essentially replacing the
commercial preparation with hardware store vinegar.

Retail concoctions often work, but often not adequately IME.

Yep. I've had the same experience.

Really it never ceases to amaze me what people pay for mostly water.

When I was young, stupid, and impoverished, I did some work for a
neighbor helping him prepare a laundry product in his garage. The
work was boring, but the owner had me fascinated with his stories
about his WWII TNT factory. The laundry ingredients were initially
fairly common and easily mixed. Yes, it was mostly water. However,
there were obscure additives that were quite necessary, usually to
solve uncommon or odd problems. The customers were getting mostly
water, but the common ingredients and obscure additives were what they
really were buying. The product eventually became a commercial
success and was sold to a large conglomerate.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558