David_8956

I would definatly reccomend buying the ingredients as opposed to making them. The Fe2O3 you would make using this method would probably not be very pure, and would be very time consuming considering the small amounts you would actually produce, and Fe2O3 is very cheap to buy anyway. As for the Al powder you could just file down some aluminium but the fillings would not be as reactive as aluminium powder you could buy, this would probably yield poor quality thermite and the activation energy would also be even higher than if you were using powder so it might be very hard to light.

I wouldn't reccomend using a pocket tourch, because when you light thermite (especially in large quantitys) molton bits of iron spray everywhere so you don't want to near it when you are lighting it, a sparkler is an effective and cheap way of lighting it.