nitro-cellulose - baking without a vacuum?

[Jim Owens]

In article <1993Jul29.095658.27363 at gserv1.dl.ac.uk> David Johnston,
daj at nhm.ic.ac.uk writes:
>As I understood it, you need to bake to bind the DNA to the NC but that
NC 
>can "explode" if heated in air, hence the vacuum. We don't have a vacuum 
>oven either, we put them in our gel drier and it works fine!

I confess!  Sometime in my past I managed to ignite a Southern blot on
nitrocellulose.  It did not explode.  It burned rapidly, but not
instantaneously with a cool yellow flame.  The burning could be retarded
but not suffocated by blanketing the NC with 3MM paper.  The filter paper
did not catch fire either, and I could not feel any heat through the
filter paper.  All I lost was a valuable Southern blot and three years
growth.

Good luck, 

Jim Owens