Coffee Grinders for Al preparation

[backindauk]

some guy i met at the hardware store, swim wants to buy a coffee grinder of the purpose of making little aluminium globs (i had no idea what this guy's on about)
Swim said that he had heard of Braun Coffee grinders being used. Swim decided that there was too many coffee grinders to choose from and is wondering which one to use? Swim needs some help on this matter.




Swim thinks it may be the third grinder pictured. Swim is apreciative of any help he may get.

[ApprenticeCook]

why is it so hard?

coffee grinder, any... just if its bigger you can do a little more at a time....

personally swim has #3... works fine, but no mattter what grinder you use al prep is slow and tedious. and bee prepared to get a few cuts from the al your cutting up.... wear gloves is best, swim didnt first time and paid the price.... ouch!

Just a coffee grinder, any type, brand, size, shape or sexual orientation will do.

[Novice]

I've never used a coffee grinder for cutting aluminum foil, so I can't say the way I'm about to present is supperior to that method.

When I want aluminum for amalgamation, I go into the kitchen and get my pasta shredder. What the hell is a pasta shredder? Take a look at the picture below (yes there are people who make their own pasta).

What you do is that you take say a couple of meters of your aluminum foil depending on how much you want, fold it lenghtwise so that it fits nicely in the shredder, insert it and start spinning the shredder and out come beautiful strips of aluminum pasta with a width of 5-10 mm, depending on the shredder (some brands allow you to adjust the width). For every 3-5 cm or so, you cut the strips of with a scissor or whatever, and you've got rectangular aluminum foil pieces ready for amalgamation.

I wish I had some pictures of the result, but I don't... It's quite a sight actually, especially if you're used to tearing a few m² of foil into tiny squares with nothing but your aching fingers.

This baby cuts 50 g of aluminum foil (that's a lot of foil) into little shreds in less than 5 minutes.

[Aurelius]

You've just made the contribution of a lifetime!  New syntheses, posts etc are all appreciated, but practical applications are few and far in between.  I've owned a pasta maker for years and can't believe it never occurred to me that it would work best.  Perhaps it's b/c it never leaves the cabinets.

[ApprenticeCook]

novice, nice.... very nice, thanks bud, swim too has one of these, didnt even occur to him to use it for that purpose!!!

[runne]

Why not just go buy a crosscut paper shredder? Works like a charm.

All that is left to do after the shredding is balling the foil up if needed with the Braun Coffee Grinder as in the original post above (the 3rd one down).

[Novice]

Yes, well I was amazed myself when I first gave it a try I've never used the Braun coffee grinder, but I'm fully satisfied with the functionality of the pasta thingy... I guess it's a matter of taste, perhaps maybe.

A pasta maker is one of those things your mother inlaw gave you on your birthday or whatever and you just put it on a shelf and forgot about... Well, now it servs a purpose! Though not the one your sweet mother inlaw had in mind

[embezzler]

they have nice shiny thick aluminium and the silica is easy to remove by soft abrasion and rinsing with boiling water, cutting might be a bitch though.

I havnt tried this in a reaction however its just a thought

[DrLucifer]

Just out of curiosity, how does aluminium powder perform?
I have my doubts, but like i said, im just curious  
Now SWIM, on the other hand, would like to know whether Al shavings could be used to 'kickoff' a ketone reduction?
Does anybee have "successful, theoretical, experience" utilising Al shavings in such a fashion?
The Al shavings in question, will be the result of Al being 'faced' on a metal lathe...So were talking smallish flakes!
Hypothetically, is it possible?

[Rhodium]

Just out of curiosity, how does aluminium powder perform?

Explosively. Don't even bother to try.

[ApprenticeCook]

al powder and water which is added to reaction vessel....
oh oh....

Rhodium is right, you would blow the glassware up if not yourself aswell....

[Aurelius]

What mesh/grade of aluminum pellets is optimum?

[livid]

Don't you need an oxidiser, before al becomes dangerous?

[ApprenticeCook]

powdered aluminium reacts with water on its own, no need for anything else, much the same way as elemental sodium and water, just a tiny bit less agressive.

Any other forms of aluminium is ok with water unless you do other stuff to it...

[Shane_Warne]

I've seen an animated image of 1g of Al powder being ignited in a controlled environment, to demonstrate it's dangers. It goes wild, it shot up about 2 metres in the air and lit the whole room up.


You can make Al surprisingly fine with just a sharp pair of scizzors and a sive. I want a coffee grinder, it would work well.

Is there a point where it just falls through and you can't really get it any finer? Or untested?

Even a hand held one would bee fun.

[ApprenticeCook]

you couldnt use a coffee grinder or scissors to get fine enough to class it powdered Al.

What are you talking about?
When you put Al foil into a coffee grinder for any purpose not matter how small the pieces you have cut up are it will ball up the pieces a'la Al/Hg prep...

[Schwa]

Just to be sure...only the blade grinder will do.  The first two coffee mills are burr grinders and will not work.  The blade grinder "balls up" the little aluminum foil pieces to maximize surface area.  In that department the burr grinder is no where...

[Shane_Warne]

AP

I have no idea what your talking about by balling up, it was just getting finer and finer from what I could tell.

So once it gets to a certain point it will just stop, well before it gets to a true powder?

The Al for Al/Hg's I've looked up have always used large squares about 1cm-2cm^2, and rings.

[Schwa]

Rhodium's page has a nice photoessay on that Al/Hg/coffee grinder thing...when it comes to dissolving metal reductions, metal surface area is a critical factor to control.  There can be too much or too little...

[DrLucifer]

Aluminium powder CAN be made successfully by employing a coffee grinder, this has been tested/proven by myself!
I mean, its not exactly 400mesh when your finished, but its fine enough for use in Al/FeO thermite mixtures, and it makes pretty fuckin good flash powder, Al/KmNO4
Grinding Al foil by itself will obviously fall short of powder, and yield pellets suitable for an al/hg amalgum.
The trick is to grind the Al foil (already trimmed down to 1x1 inch squares) together with a quantity of SALT!
Now i generally add a handful of salt per load of Al.
I own about 6 breville coffee grinders, all single purpose, so a load consists of a full grinder, more or less!
Now, it will take around 15min to get the powder you desire.
DONT take the lid off halfway to check it out, you dont want to inhale Al dust, NOR do you want your face to be charred IF the Al particles ingite when exposed to air.
So, once you think your Al is ready, slowly and carefully take the lid off, and slowly pour the mixture into a 250/500ml beaker full of cheap denatured alcohol.
The alcohol is there to dissolve all the salt, so make sure you have enough! Now the thing is, when i first tried this, I added the Al powder/salt mixture to dH2O without any problems at all...maybe i was lucky, who knows!  
Yeah, so you guys get the drift, decant the alcohol and then spread the Al powder out to dry on paper towel or something.
Now, It has been recommended that a small amount of parrafin wax be added to the Al/salt mixture to reduce friction and to make the process safer. Refine any way you like!
Either way, its a good source of cheap Al powder.