25 replies to this topic

[sasman]

Hi
I have just Got some red lead + copper oxide and hoping to make some Dragons eggs ,But im having great difficulty in getting any Magnallium , It looks like im going to have to make some ...Has anyone made or got any magnallium here in the UK?...

...I have read on another forum that you need to melt the magnesium under a protective atmosphere or under a molten salt to stop the magnesium burning..Rec pyro and metal casting say its very dangerous casting magnesium due to the fact it ignites very easily ..So it dont sound to good ..Can any one give any guidelines or advice.. I have got some Aluminium and Magnesium ordered should be here on monday.. 50/50 magnallium is what i will try to make.. Any1 with Pyrotechnica vol XIII ,XIV, XV . could help me and point out the best mg/al ratio?..
Cheers
sasman

[RegimentalPyro]

Go down to your local Newsagents and buy up all the metal pencil sharpners that they have. Remove the blades and the screws holding the blades in place.

Now file down the pencil sharpners and collect the metal dust produced. There you go! Cheap and easy Magnalium

[Phoenix]

I remember seeing a website by someone who had done exactly that (no, not filed pencil sharpeners!) giving the procedure. Can't remember where though, and I can't find it with Google. I believe it by was someone on this forum.

Edited by Phoenix, 12 June 2004 - 10:42 AM.

[Richard H]

Dexters Pyro Page seems to be offline at the moment, however that article and another of interest can be viewed below. I fortunately made archived copies which should open in recent versions of IE.

http://www.ukrocketr.../magnalium1.mht

http://www.ukrocketr.../magnalium2.mht

[sasman]

The link didnt happen to be dexters at force9 .co.uk?..That link is long dead .

what i dont understand is how google works?.How can googel find a page that no longer exists?...Im also amazed that i cant find much info on making magnalium ,isnt it much use in pyro?.

.Well i got a nice surprise this morning My 4kg Magnesium arrived ..But no aluminium ..Luckily i have got 1 kg of aluminium bar which i will use with 1 kg Magnesium to make the 50/50 Magnallium..May do it tonight or sunday.. I read to use a molten salt bath of potassium chloride and potassium bromide it forms a eutectic mixture which as a lower melting point than the individual chemicals,but then read from another source that this wont work because the molten salt is heavier than the Mg and therefore the Mg will float on top of the molten salt?..the source said that he poured the melt into a deep bucket of water to create a sponge like mass?..that sound's very dodgey Molten magnesium + water= errrrr...???.

I think the best way will be to melt both the metals in the crucible then give it a good stir then just leave it to cool rather than risk pouring out the molten metal which may ignite ... I will post my findings later.

[sasman]

ooops i was posting my reply Whilst Richard had posted His ..sorry for any confusion caused? .
Thanks Richard for that working Link .. Im off to make some right away

[Richard H]

Best of luck! Do let us all know how it goes.

[sasman]

Ok here are my first results .which look very promissing ..
I started of with 1 kg Mg 99.5% pure i had to cut of small bits to get the correct weight the Mg cuts very very easy ..with a hacksaw..

My aluminium is From a section off a 4" diameter bar I asume this is Pure aluminium.. had to use this because my aluminium ingot did not arrive this morning..soon to be melted
I placed the Mg in the crucible first then sat the Al on top and placed them in the Furnace temp was about 800c Furnace

after about 15 minutes i slowly opened the furnace door and could see that all the metal had melted with a pretty thick layer of oxide on the top ,i noticed as i opened the door and let air into the furnace the surface of the melt started to ignite.. ..so i closed the door and hoped things would settle down..

Im sorry for the poor picture quality but i was on my own and was in a bit of a rush!..The Mg was on fire and very bright and my Flash refused to pop up so the photos look a bit dark..I preheated a piece of steel rod so that i could use it to mix the melt I started to stir very slowly just odd bits of brightly burning magnesium floating on top of the slag can be seen ..Looks Hot!
..when i pulled out the metal rod the remaining Mg/Al on the rod ignited as soon as it was exposed to the air!..In the photo you can see it burning ,Dont forget this is after i put the rod down and ran for the camera a good 30 secs had elapsed by the time i took the photo Most of the energetic burning was over...
Crucible and molten Magnallium

The Mg stopped burning pretty quickly so i thought i would chance Pouring some of the molten metal into a Bucket filled with water!..i started pouring about 1/3rd of the melt into the water and there were lots of steam and spluttering and whiff off Hydrogen Sulfide?? gas could be detected...I didnt like this so stopped and decided to just let the melt solidify in the crucible..Here is a shot of the bucket Bucket with MgAl?

I let the crucible Cool and found the Metal just dropped straight out of the crucible with no force or banging needed ,I hit it with a hammer and Viola! it Broke in two no effort at all ..this Magnallium is very very brittle..If you were to have Antimony metal side by side it would be hard to tell them apart.

I bashed it about a bit Sliced and diced..then i put some in my ball mill with steel balls and let it run for 15 orso minutes ..while that was grinding away i ground some up in a pestle and mortar.. the powder on the top is from the Ball Mill looks very dark gray not metallic at all? and the small portion is ground with the pestle and mortar..this looked silvery and very large grains..Powderd Magnallium Ball milled and hand Ground...
here is the amount i ended up with about 1.5kgBag Full ..
I mixed a little with some Meal and was more than happy with the Intense bright white Flame sparks and a sound that sounded like frying bacon ..
ill add some to my rocket propelant to see if it makes a nice sizzling sound?.I hope it works ok for dragons eggs and glitter effects and whatever else i can think of..

..i wont grind down any more magnallium until i find out what mesh size im going to need..once you have reduced the mesh size you wont be able to make a larger mesh!..
Over the next few days orso ill post some of the uses i have put it to ..maybe a fountain?.. not made one of those yet...

Ps I noticed a strong smell of ammonia when it gets wet ????What would that reaction be??? does it take nitrogen from the atmosphere?

Edited by sasman, 12 June 2004 - 03:45 PM.

[Creepin_pyro]

Great work, sasman! That Magnalium looks superb! I think the frying bacon sound means that you've done a good job - Can't wait to see how you use it....

[BigG]

nice.

Few things - very rarely an aluminium rod is pure aluminium. Pure aluminium is too soft for any sort of bar, and it is usually contain 10% of other things.

Second - that bit of black staff you got might be some form of aluminium or magnesium oxide - the melt should be skimmed through the operation for get a purer magnelium - nonetheless, magnelium will work even if you don't get it prefect - so it look like you done well!

[Arthur Brown]

The Aluminium used in electrical wire esp the big underground HV distro cable is VERY pure and can be found in scrapyards (typ 99.95% ) The copper is similarly pure and the diference should be obvious!!

I heard rumour that the extension tube for the gearshift remote control casing on a VW beetle is a Magnesium alloy can any-one confirm this or get one analysed?

When setting up home casting please consider safety

1 Molten metal at 600C cremates whatever flesh it touches Keep it small stable and at a good distance.

2 Find the correct flux to form a covering layer to keep out air. Or look at argon or nitrogen gas flow.

3 Metal fires are still considered almost unextinguishable as they burn so hot as to decompose H2O and CO2. --- remember why we want to use magnalium!!

Edited by Arthur Brown, 13 June 2004 - 10:11 AM.

[Phoenix]

I heard rumour that the extension tube for the gearshift remote control casing on a VW beetle is a Magnesium alloy can any-one confirm this or get one analysed?

You know, I really want my NASCAR Roller/Mill motor to pack up now. To mount it on the roller I had to drill some holes in the chassis of the motor, for screws. As I was drilling it, it was coming out in small, quite brittle flakes, rather than the long strands of swarf that I have seen from aluminium. Anyhow, I dropped a few of these through a flame, and sure enough, lots of bright white sizzling sparks.

[Pyromaster2003]

Great MgAl sasman. Looking forward to watching how you put it to good use!

[Phoenix]

Find the correct flux to form a covering layer to keep out air. Or look at argon or nitrogen gas flow.

I'm not sure about this, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that magnesium will burn in nitrogen (to form magnesium nitride), which would seem to make blowing nitrogen across it rather inneffective to stop it from reacting with the air, and possibly dangerous. However, I haven't done this in practice so I don't know this for sure, just a thought I had. A noble gas like argon should be fine, though.

BTW, sasman, very nice work.

Edited by Phoenix, 13 June 2004 - 05:38 PM.

[alany]

Yep Mg will burn rather slowly in Nitrogen, but not as well as Titanium.

Even Al burns in Nitrogen to some degree.