Metal Powders Wanted

[simply RED]

Metal powders are extremely dificult to find nowdays in clear forms. Here almost no chemical supplier sells it!
This makes FAE's and flashes difficult to prepare, i've pointed some saurces of metal powders down:
paints containing metal powders, mix the paint with 10 times in volume solvent, wait the metal to precipitate.
Mix the precipitate with acetone, precipitate again, and you have very good metal powder!
Chemical labs store metal powders, if you know people from the labs, they may buy powders for you.
Water Boilers use electron cathode(or it was anode?) (90%Mg, 10%Al) for "antirust".
If you know more saurces of metals...
What about metal powders aquiring in your country?

[zaibatsu]

Used in fibreglass to increase its ability to survive heat, usually around 300mesh spherical Al.

Also, Al powder used to fingerprint, you could use that as a story to buy some from a supplier "I'm a science teacher...".

[vulture]

I buy my Al powder from a chemist/paint store which also sells loads of other chems. It's an old and somewhat dirty and unorganized store, the real old chemist type. Magnesium powder is often obtainable as a wast product from certain companies which like to get rid of it as magnesium powder created by by polishing/cutting/grinding is usually very fine and poses a severe FAE hazard. Just make sure they don't wet it for you! If one has a ball mill, one could easily process Mg camping lighter blocks to make powder.

EDIT: finally able to post again, thanks to the mods. :D

<small>[ October 12, 2002, 12:07 PM: Message edited by: vulture ]</small>

[A-BOMB]

Well a few days ago I was over at EP's new site, and saw something about magnalium. Well now I LOVE it! :D ,its easier to grind/powder than MG or AL, and it burns good. Because I tried it in a few different comps today when I got back from pheasant hunting this morning I make A few baches of thermite, flash, star mix, with it and I worked great. It alittle harder to make but, it doesn't need to get ballmilled for a week either, just a little work with a mortar&pestle turns it into a fine powder. So its my new powder of choice when I'm making comps. I LOVE magnalium! :D

edit: peasant to pheasant

<small>[ October 12, 2002, 04:08 PM: Message edited by: A-BOMB ]</small>

[frogfot]

Recently i got a catalogue from new allaround shop (good for me), they have something that is called "rust-protecting paint". Also associated with "cold galvanization", dont know how to call it in english.
It says that dryed paint on surface contains up to 90% zinc. I havnt bought it yet.
Sold in 1/3; 0,4 and 1l.

[0EZ0]

Well in OZ, metal powders are not that hard to find if you know where to look for them. A site that stocks all types of metal powders including zinc, titanium, aluminium, magnesium, stainless steel, iron, and many more is <a href="http://www.metalpowders.com.au/" target="_blank">Australian Metal Powders Supplies (AMPS)</a> . They sell an abundance of metal powders quite cheap.

One company that sells a bronzing powder as an additive to paint is Dulux. Although i think it was very expensive.

Obtaining metal powder from metallic paint has already been mentioned and is quite a viable source if the paint is cheap.

Also if you have a company that specialises in fibreglass products, then they usually have an Al additive available.

Sometimes if you're lucky, a metal machining business might have powder from processing metals. But I don't know about this source as I have never taken the time to find such a place near me.

Lastly if worse comes to worse, bring out the old ball mill and have a crack at processing your own metal powders :p .

(Edit-spelling)

<small>[ October 12, 2002, 11:20 PM: Message edited by: 0EZ0 ]</small>

[inferno]

0EZ0 - There is a thread at xinventions about the Shoalhaven craft supply (sell Al, Cu, brass powders and some others) and AMPS, with prices, mesh etc.

Their (AMPS) Al is #325 mesh, $12.50/kg, Shoalhaven is $19/500g, and it is a 50/50 mix of 325 mesh and 200 mesh. Basically, metal powders in Australia are a waste.

PS a firelighter block is around 20g for $14AU, chem supplies sell Mg turnings $20/100g...

[pirotechman]

"chem supplies sell Mg turnings $20/100g..."

With me mg costs $20/kg. But I live in Poland :)

[PhRaZMAkInEtIcS]

In bulgaria i've seen Mg and Zn powders for sale but never alluminium powder :confused: .Your chem supplier shoud have them.Also once in school i saw some Zn powder but someone stole it before me :mad: (i was just going to take a few grams :rolleyes: ).

I've read ,from a not soo reliable source, than when heated to 600 C you can make powder from aluminium by hammering it.Just like Zn(i think)

And is the powder you get from bronze paint really alluminium???

[Marvin]

Aluminium is fairly soft, heating it will just make it softer and more likley to oxidise, melting it in air doesnt work very well either, any surface exposed to the air gets a thick oxide layer, as opposed to the very thin one you get at room temp, the constant motion of the aluminium constantly makes a fresh surfaces, its unworkable this way. Making magalum dust would work this way if you value your sanity less than a small amount of metal dust. Magalum is very brittle which is why this would work. Wear a mask if theres a lot of metal powder in the air, fine metal dust when it gets far enough into the lungs stays there.

Paint grade aluminium works very badly in firteworks, at least what I can get locally, just not fine enough. Most people that absolutly cant get fine Al blenderise or ballmill aluminium foil, this is extremely common info it must have been mentioned here before.

[mr.evil]

i get my 600mesh coated aluminium powder at an old drugstore in Belgium, for 4 euro's per 100gram (cheap!)
This stuff works perfectly for flash powder... But when i need Al powder for sparks or something i make it my own:

I heat pieces of Al foil above my bunsenbrander, not to long just a few seconds. After that i crumble the foil a bit and then i put it in my electrical coffeegrinder, after a few times grinding i have about 50-100mesh Al powder, that is very reactive and produces bright, white sparks :)

[lucifer]

I always put aluminum foil in a paper cutter, then put it in a coffee grinder and then put it in a ball mill for some day’s.
The end result will be very fine and very reactive flake aluminum powder,
But be careful at opening the ball mill, it happen to me ones that after a few seconds after opening the ball mill the aluminum powder was on fire. Its good to just open the ball mill everyday to prevent this from happening.

[Nika452]

The aluminum that ignited had become pyrophoric. Neat, for I have never actually had this happen to me, although I knew it was possible. Magnesium, along with titanium and iron also are reputed to react hypergolicly with the atmosphere.

[EP]

An excellent page I found recently on making metal powders:

<a href="http://members.shaw.ca/justin.le/grinder.html" target="_blank">http://members.shaw.ca/justin.le/grinder.html</a>

I don't remember where I saw this (maybe on above page) but I read something saying if you just open up the milling jar every few hours or so it will prevent the metal from becoing pyrophoric.

[nbk2000]

If a person built a glovebox, they could make pyrophoric powder on purpose and handle it in inert atmosphere.

I'd imagine there'd be some uses for highly flammable metal powders that spontaneously ignite in air. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

I'd think throwing a bit a dry ice in the milling jar would work to prevent oxidation.

Aluminium, by the way, is one of the few metals that becomes more brittle when hot then when cold. You could pound heated Al ingot into "sand" with a hammer, prior to milling, which would save a lot of time.