205 vs Thermite
- Thread starter reelfour
- Start date
Sad way to see a car go out, but it looked pretty end of life anyway...
However, thermite is serious stuff, and as can be seen from the article below, it is dangerously easy to accidentally make your own at home. Thanks to David Southwell of CCC NSW for sourcing this a couple of years ago:
Home made Thermite!
Huh?? Yes, Thermite! And, no it won't eat your house or car.
Recently, Restored Cars magazine carried a short story about the potential hazards of grinding metals. ('A Warning When Grinding', Restored Cars, Mar-Apr 2004, No 163. p 54) A Canadian restorer received serious burns to his hands, face and upper body when engulfed by a 2 foot diameter fireball while grinding a steel plate. He alos lost his moustache, eybrows and some of his hair, but luckily he was wearing glasses at the time. The stuff of black humour and a good story perhaps, but a serious warning to others nonetheless.
This surprising accident highlights the potential danger of grinding aluminium and steel in the same work area. In this case someone had used his 'belt grinder' to remove the heads from some aluminium rivets before he arrived and started work on a piece of angle iron. The powdered aluminium had combined with powdered ferrous oxide from grinding the steel and resulted in a highly exothermic Thermite reaction. Thermite can apparently be used to join sections of railway line!
In this intensely exothermic reaction, iron (III) oxide is reduced to metallic iron by aluminum. The heat released is enough to raise the temperature to nearly 3000C! This is more than enough energy to yield molten products. Iron melts at 1535 C.
2Al(s) + Fe2O3(s) ---> Al2O3(l) + 2Fe(l) Heat of reaction = -848 KJ
The last paragragh was admittedly pinched from the www, but you get the idea. So there you have it. A recipe for making you very own Thermite. Fancy a little DIY work joining railway lines? This could be just the thing to keep you off the streets. On the other hand, it could be a recipe for disaster in your garage. Carefully clean up any aluminium dust before grinding steel or just don't grind aluminium.
And if you are using an angle grinder near your rusty old wreck, don't forget to cover it up unless you want metal embedded in your paint and glass. Grinder sparks stick to glass almost as well as weld splatter. When you try to remove it you'll end up with tiny craters all over it. At least you then have an excuse for that new windscreen.
However, thermite is serious stuff, and as can be seen from the article below, it is dangerously easy to accidentally make your own at home. Thanks to David Southwell of CCC NSW for sourcing this a couple of years ago:
Home made Thermite!
Huh?? Yes, Thermite! And, no it won't eat your house or car.
Recently, Restored Cars magazine carried a short story about the potential hazards of grinding metals. ('A Warning When Grinding', Restored Cars, Mar-Apr 2004, No 163. p 54) A Canadian restorer received serious burns to his hands, face and upper body when engulfed by a 2 foot diameter fireball while grinding a steel plate. He alos lost his moustache, eybrows and some of his hair, but luckily he was wearing glasses at the time. The stuff of black humour and a good story perhaps, but a serious warning to others nonetheless.
This surprising accident highlights the potential danger of grinding aluminium and steel in the same work area. In this case someone had used his 'belt grinder' to remove the heads from some aluminium rivets before he arrived and started work on a piece of angle iron. The powdered aluminium had combined with powdered ferrous oxide from grinding the steel and resulted in a highly exothermic Thermite reaction. Thermite can apparently be used to join sections of railway line!
In this intensely exothermic reaction, iron (III) oxide is reduced to metallic iron by aluminum. The heat released is enough to raise the temperature to nearly 3000C! This is more than enough energy to yield molten products. Iron melts at 1535 C.
2Al(s) + Fe2O3(s) ---> Al2O3(l) + 2Fe(l) Heat of reaction = -848 KJ
The last paragragh was admittedly pinched from the www, but you get the idea. So there you have it. A recipe for making you very own Thermite. Fancy a little DIY work joining railway lines? This could be just the thing to keep you off the streets. On the other hand, it could be a recipe for disaster in your garage. Carefully clean up any aluminium dust before grinding steel or just don't grind aluminium.
And if you are using an angle grinder near your rusty old wreck, don't forget to cover it up unless you want metal embedded in your paint and glass. Grinder sparks stick to glass almost as well as weld splatter. When you try to remove it you'll end up with tiny craters all over it. At least you then have an excuse for that new windscreen.