Liquid chalk is an awesome product that’s used to increase grip in various fitness settings. To make liquid chalk you will need magnesium carbonate, isopropanol alcohol, and a blender.
Step 1. Preparing The Magnesium Carbonate
The magnesium carbonate, or chalk, can be bought in block form from most fitness shops. Sometimes you can buy it in readily formed powder, but this is typically harder to find, as its less desirable in a sports setting.
You will need to crush the magnesium carbonate into fine powder. An easy way to do this is to wrap the block in a newspaper and crush it with a hammer. It’s not perfect, but you’ll end up with a fine white powder after about 5 minutes of work.
Another way to get it into powder form is to use a grater. This is less satisfying but will stop you from making so much noise!
Step 2. Prepping The Alcohol
It’s important to buy the right concentration of isopropanol. To create liquid chalk, we will need 80% concentration. If the isopropanol is pure, you will need to dilute it accordingly. This will require 200mL of water for every 800mL of isopropanol used.
80% concentration will ensure that it evaporates more slowly. It’s also the optimal concentration for your liquid chalk to have anti-microbial properties.
Step 3. Mixing Chalk With Alcohol
The mixing ratio for chalk to alcohol is 2:1. Depending on how much grip you want and how viscous you want the fluid, this ratio can be slightly varied.
For example, adding more chalk will provide better grip, but adding too much will cause the chalk to dry faster inside the bottle after extended use – which can make it really tough to get out!
To efficiently mix the magnesium carbonate powder with the isopropanol you will want a powerful blender. Put the setting on high and leave for about 3 minutes. This will result in a white pasty fluid, ready to be bottled.
Step 4. Storing Liquid Chalk
You will need to quickly pour the fluid into a bottle for storage. The more the chalk is exposed to the air, the more of the isopropanol will evaporate. If enough evaporates, your liquid chalk will lose it’s liquid properties and will dry up inside the bottle.
Due to the viscous nature of the liquid chalk, you will ideally need a vacuum pump. This will speed up the transfer and get all of the remaining liquid chalk in the blender.
And that’s it – you’re done! Congratulations, you just made your first diy liquid chalk product!
