making magnalium without a gasburner

[Bonny]

I got some more Mg from Tentacles and re-melted that crappy batch today, I also added a few extra grams of Mg. Came out nice and brittle. I also made a few more batches, haven't weighed them yet but probably a lb or 2. Had one crappy batch that my partner put out in the snow to cool and didn't watch. It sank down and I guess a bunch of snow fell in and turned much of it to shit. Stil works well in fountains and bonfires though

[FrankRizzo]

Very cool Bonny. I was just in my shed and realized that I've got a few empty propane cylinders (the torch-sized ones) that I've been meaning to recycle and thought of an idea for 'em. I think they would make great crucibles if cut in half.

 

Of course, I plan to empty all remaining gas, drill a hole in 'em and purge with water first.

[Bonny]

Very cool Bonny. I was just in my shed and realized that I've got a few empty propane cylinders (the torch-sized ones) that I've been meaning to recycle and thought of an idea for 'em. I think they would make great crucibles if cut in half.

 

Of course, I plan to empty all remaining gas, drill a hole in 'em and purge with water first.

Sounds like a good use for the cyliders. A little more heavy duty than tin cans. I use a SS bowl for my crucible.

You may want to "drill" those propane cyliders with a rifle from a safe distance just in case there's still gas left after emptying.

I had a video that my buddies filmed a few years ago, they were shooting an old propane tank (that was already full of holes) and it exploded! It was a very large tank though...

[pudidotdk]

Made my first little MgAl batch today (and first metal melting ever).

Used little under 250 g material, yielded 227 g MgAl.

I used a grill starter and BBQ briquettes, and a little gas torch.

 

http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/8690/dsc02138bo4.jpg

 

It's much more brittle than I would expect from the things I've heard about it, I broke the chunk with my hands (and cut my hand...)

[Bonny]

Made my first little MgAl batch today (and first metal melting ever).

Used little under 250 g material, yielded 227 g MgAl.

I used a grill starter and BBQ briquettes, and a little gas torch.

 

 

It's much more brittle than I would expect from the things I've heard about it, I broke the chunk with my hands (and cut my hand...)

Looks good pudi! Give it a quick clean with a wire brush and you're good to go. It's really amazing how brittle it is. Even the shitty oxidized stuff can be used (fountains) burns with a nice sizzle. It mills into 100 and -200 (and smaller) quite easily.

 

Edit: I just cleaned up all my MgAl and I have about 1-1/4lbs ready to crush and mill. I had a few decent size chunks get sucked into my dust collector(shop vac) that I have set up by my drill press to catch the dust when I'm using the wire brush.

[Stinger]

Hi

 

It is a nice ingot you have there, pudi!

 

I´d go for these butane-burners here:

 

http://www.rangertravel.de/shop/images/pro..._micro_2777.jpg

 

 

I think they are hot enough.

 

Stinger

[Sylar]

You might melt a bit of MgAl with that, depending on the size of the crucibel, but if you have anything over 50 grams in mind I think you're fresh out of luck on that thingy ...

 

Those type of burners don't deliver enough power to melt any descent quantity of MgAl before the gas runs out. You can give it a shot, but I don't have much faith in it. A blown coal, charcoal or even a wood fire will do a much better job.

[TheSidewinder]

Wow! What a walk down memory lane!

 

I have an earlier model of that EXACT same stove, made by Camping Gaz (or Poly Gaz, same company). It was a handy little stove for camping.

 

Only thing is, the cartridges for it contain a Butane/Propane mix, heavy on the Butane, and not pure Propane. Noticeably lower heat output than all-Propane.

 

I'm 99% sure Sylar is right. That won't get hot enough to melt MgAl without boosting it somehow. A blown charcoal fire would sure do the trick.

[FrankRizzo]

No, the butane stove wouldn't have enough heat output unless you used some heavy insulation around the outside of your cruicible to keep the heat in.

 

The natural draft created by the charcoal starter is all you need. Using a blower just creates an oxidizing atmosphere which is more likely to burn a hole in your red-hot cruicible or sustain a fire when you've added the magnesium.

 

Also, charcoal briquettes cost so little there's no comparison to bottled gas. The chimney starters are cheap too.

[Stinger]

Hi

 

The problem is that I haven´t got any electricity in my garden so I am forced to use something else, like a butane burner ( small), a bigger one is too dangerous ( my parents opinion).

 

 

So I will buy 20kg of charcoal and try to melt MgAL with a simple coal-fire.

 

 

Stinger

[Bonny]

Hi

 

The problem is that I haven´t got any electricity in my garden so I am forced to use something else, like a butane burner ( small), a bigger one is too dangerous ( my parents opinion).

 

 

So I will buy 20kg of charcoal and try to melt MgAL with a simple coal-fire.

 

 

Stinger

Although likely more difficult than coal, I've made MgAl several times with a wood stove. It was boosted using a fan and needed regular stoking, but it can be done. The wood I used was tamarack (larch tree) which burns very hot.

[Sylar]

I have done it with a hole dug out in the ground, lined with ordinary bricks blown with a 200W fan.

 

The idea is to make a kind of furnace.

Choose your crucible, measure the diameter and add 50 cm. Dig out a pit with this diameter that is about 10 cm deeper then the height of your crucible.

Dig out some sort of channel tangentially to your furnace through which the air will flow. It's important that the airflow doesn't contact your crucible directly.

 

Line the furnace with bricks, leaving a hole where the channel you dug for air arrives in the furnace. Close the top of the air channel with bricks aswell. Place your fan with the blowing side in or on your air channel. If you have a really loose soil, you might have to line the air channel with something aswell.

 

Place the crucible (prefilled) in the middle of your furnace. If you use a pedestal to give your crucible maximal contact with flames, make it a stable one. Stack fuel around your crucible and ignite. Turn on the fan, regulate airflow by covering the suction side.

 

The 1 hour fire I attained with this left me with several glazed bricks, so expect enough heat from :-)

[TheSidewinder]

Good description, Sylar.

 

Stinger, you WILL need a moving air source for boost if you use charcoal briquettes. It can be done a bit more simply than Sylar posted, but follow the same precautions and it should work fine.

 

And get the folks on your side. It goes a lot smoother if you do, trust me.

[tentacles]

Still, if you can afford the $15 - $20 for a charcoal chimney, it will turn this process from frustrating to easy. It's not like they are not reusable, and your parents would probably appreciate that the fire is contained in the chimney (aside from the ashes that fall out the bottom). There's no fussing with fans, the stuff practically makes itself.

[FrankRizzo]

Stinger, you WILL need a moving air source for boost if you use charcoal briquettes. It can be done a bit more simply than Sylar posted, but follow the same precautions and it should work fine.

With the charcoal chimney, you don't. The natural draft (by design) is sufficient. Tentacles and I even used generic briquettes (Our Family brand) for the first batch we made.

[TheSidewinder]

OK, learn something new every day.

 

It's even simpler then, Stinger. Do it with a charcoal chimney and you don't need electricity or a blower.

[OneEyeCharlie]

I vowed that if it ever got above 0 degrees C, I would try FrankRizzo's method for cooking up MgAl. Today I did.

 

It was so easy that I kept thinking I must be doing something wrong. I only had 1 soup can and enough raw material diced up for a quick test run. Now I wish I had more. Next time I'll have 5 or 6 cans ready.

 

I produced this 1/2 Kg chunk in less than 45 minutes. A good portion

of that time was waiting for the charcoal to light and heat up enough. Even after reading plenty about it, I was amazed by how brittle the end-product turned out!

 

You can tell I'm happy due to the fact that I'm incorporating metric measurements into this post to make it easier on the Canucks and Euros. Arrrrghhh!

[oskarchem]

Huh, ok I'm going to try this aswell. I mean would the cost of making it be lower thant buying already mage MgAl?

[asilentbob]

Assuming you can get a magnesium ingot or something for a normal price and use scrap Al for free, it will be MUCH cheaper pound for pound.

[oskarchem]

Would Al foil work? I mean just to try this out, then I could probably find myself a source of scrap aluminium.

[Arthur]

Only electrical aluminium wire is even nearly pure enough to assume it ia aluminium.

 

Lots of things are and alloy of aluminium and the alloying elemente include copper

 

http://www.secowarwick.com/pressrel/articl...mmetallurgy.htm

[justanotherpyro]

Me and buddy gave the Chimney briquette starter method a shot. It was definitely the easiest method I have tried, and makes The process very simple. Thanks To FrankRizzo and tentacles.

[tentacles]

Only electrical aluminium wire is even nearly pure enough to assume it ia aluminium.

 

Lots of things are and alloy of aluminium and the alloying elemente include copper

 

http://www.secowarwick.com/pressrel/articl...mmetallurgy.htm

Common alloys of aluminum won't contain more than a few % of alloying elements.

 

If you look at a chart of alloying agents in aluminum, do a little math, the common alloys (like 6061) are only about 3% non-aluminum. Of that 3%, 2% of it is silicon and magnesium. The only alloys I would actively shy from in fireworks (possibly) would be 2xxx series, these can contain 4-7% copper. Although, I'm not sure that would even be bad.

 

5 series aluminum contains 3-6% magnesium, so it's a good starting point if you can get it.

 

This is a total non-issue.

 

(Reference - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_alloy)

[Nitrato]

Thank you FrankRizzo and Tentacles, very very much.

 

My first try at magnalium "world" using hair drier and soup can wasnt so good (almost all was oxidized..since I was using very very tiny amounts)..

 

Today I tried your method using the "Charcoal Chimney".. But I made mine, since it isnt avaliable here and was just quick and easy, less than 20 min effort at all... I just used two 3,6 L paint can; in one I drilled several holes in the bottom and in the other can I just removed the bottom and drilled several holes in the walls.. The can without bottom was placed above a improvised holder and the other can was just placed above this..

 

Only getting the charcoal (hardware grade, not briquettes.. relatively satisfactory to use in BP making) to light was somewhat difficult.. But once started the aluminium (I´ve used 50g of Al wire, supposedly pure and 50g of pieces of alleged "Mg" from car parts got at local scrapyard (the only Mg thing I found..Mg anodes arent OTC here) ) melted nicely

 

The Mg pieces were then slowly added and stirred with a spoon (unfortunatelly I wasnt able to remove all the paint on it, so it burned inside to give even more slave)..

 

In the end I got about 45g of 'crude' MgAl (small pieces of Magnalium full of black/grey oxides/impurities).. Anyway I believe is good MgAl.. UNBELIEVABLE brittle.. Some chunks were powdered using a mortar and pestle make out of cast aluminium and the very fine powder gave very promising results with chlorate and CuO... very intense bright light!!!

 

Is a very small amount and yield when compared to yours, but Im just happy with this first positive result...

 

Thank you guys!

 

(BTW, sorry by the bad english)

Edited July 26, 2008 by Nitrato

[marks265]

I thought aluminum beer cans would work good once ya got past the beer part. I have heard that cans were pretty pure but never really checked it out.