4 replies to this topic

[dfk]

I was looking through United Nuclears products and found this,


Misch Metal
chemical formula: (see below)
( chunks )
A metal alloy consisting of about 50 percent Cerium, 25 percent Lanthanum, 15 percent Neodymium, and 10 percent other rare-earth metals & Iron. It is the pure material used in lighters, and produces giant showers of sparks. Shotgun shells loaded with small pieces of Misch Metal are called "Dragon's Breath" - the flying particles ignite on contact with the air and produce a fireball. Hold a small piece against a grinding wheel for some amazing sparks.
Fun stuff - lots of weird uses!
1 ounce: $4.00

Its something new they just started selling.
Dose anyone know what this is, what its good for besides shooting out of shotguns, or if its even safe? Never herd os some of these metals in it and I wonder why they combust on contact with air?

[Pazza]

It looks to me like it is just some kind of spark additive, so you could probably use it in fountains, or in a rocket composition to give the rocket a good tail.

The only problem is that it costs 4 bucks an ounce so unless it makes some damn good sparks, I wouldn't buy it.

[tajmiester]

There is one small problem other than cost. This 'Misch Metal' stuff is designed to make large sparks when it comes into contact with friction. So making a composition containing it sound a little dangerous'. Mixing could be tricky and milling and pestle and mortar are definitely off the agenda. I wouldn?t touch it with an extendable bargepole!

Tris

Edited by tajmiester, 26 January 2004 - 07:56 AM.

[alany]

I'd buy it if I hadn't got screwed by them before.

It is used in smokeless cake fountians and other indoor spark producing fireworks that use nitrocellulose as their propellant. I have a really small quantity of it I extracted from some cake gerbs by dissolving off the NC in acetone, it is about -100 mesh granular.

A little obviously goes a long way compared to sparkler steel.

Yep, you definately wouldn't want to mill (and probably ram) compositions with it, but diapering it in as the last step should be OK, I'd probably risk sifting it too, but I'm insane when it comes to calculated risks with small quantities of composition.

[adamw]

Another use would be in spark hits of course. More expensive than Zirconium though!