I have some shapelock, I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for turning it into a very fine powder? I wanted to do an experiment where I mixed powdered polymorph with laser toner and measure the resulting conductivity.

here is the inspiration for the idea:
[www.instructables.com]

The hard part would be grinding it without heating it. Perhaps a kitchen meat grinder, turned slowly be hand? It may not get you a fine powder but it will help spread the Shapelock so you can incorporate the toner with melting and stirring.

If the experiment works it sounds like it would be far more cost-effective than the "Amazing Wire Glue" I just saw at Goldmine (http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/prodinfo.asp?number=G16133). It's $3.95 for 0.3 fluid ounces.

"Brand new product is an electrically conductive glue. Make electrical connections quickly without heat or solder. Attach wires to glass solar panels, batteries, etc. using this amazing product. Highly conductive non-toxic no lead product is great for low voltage electrical connections. Just apply and allow to cure overnight. You'll find hundreds of uses for this amazing product."

... try with cooling the grinder and the material prior to act - be carfully with plastic parts, beneath -10

I think a ball mill is the best thing for this.

Wait a minute, isn't laser toner something like graphite or carbon, and isn't carbon the stuff they use in resistors? [hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu]

Laser toner is a mixture of plastic and dye, the black dye might have some carbon in it, but I think they use black iron oxides.
Most importantly it probably has a high electrical resistance because of the plastic.

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[olytim.blogspot.com]

Douglas Brebner Wrote:
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> I think a ball mill is the best thing for this.


a thought i had is to mix in some carefully shredded conductive fibre (sparkfun has this) and carbon, the idea being that the fibres bridge the conductive particles together..

Not necessarily so. At least some laser printer is magnetic and conductive. See this link:

[h30499.www3.hp.com]

Here's a formulation for making "carbomorph", a tested conductive filament:[www.plosone.org]. The one line summary: suspend carbon black in dichloromethane, mix with your polymorph (aka PCL), dry it out and roll it into filament.