Interesting Processes

[usmcpop]

This site has some interesting photos of welding processes for railroad tracks. Thermite looks like fun. My 16 year old (the one who wants the MIG), is collecting Magnetite sand to make a tablespoonful of Thermite.

http://www.msm.cam.ac.uk/phase-trans...ils/Rails.html

[hankj]

I've done some exothermic welding on telephone building grounding systems. Pretty cool stuff. Plenty of smoke and fire! Always an attention getter.

Hank

[Rhett]

Those are interesting photos. I was not aware of the process by which rails are welded.

[usmcpop]

I didn't know any of the other processes. My older son, who was studying engineering and became a combat engineer, didn't think much about Thermite, until he saw exactly what it could do. Boy did he perk up after seeing that. What a reaction! Of course, 200+ pounds of C4 is pretty impressive, too.

[Storydude1]

This site has some interesting photos of welding processes for railroad tracks. Thermite looks like fun. My 16 year old (the one who wants the MIG), is collecting Magnetite sand to make a tablespoonful of Thermite.

http://www.msm.cam.ac.uk/phase-trans...ils/Rails.html

Aluminum dust, and Iron Rust powder in a 3:1 ratio. Add 1 O/A torch for lighting, and WOOOMPF.


Thermite is VERY cool stuff.

[chip hayden]

i don't know if it's true or not but, i was once told the Navy used the thermite process to fuse the aluminum house of a ship to the steel deck. if it's true i would have loved to seen that!

[Mike W]

I had some thermite slabs in the Navy that were to be set on top of equipment and lit off in case the bad guys got too close. I made a table with two barrels of thermite for the legs.

[Sandy]

CAD, the process hank was talking about happens to be a process and a brand name also. The skil saw of exothermic welding. CAD stands for Copper-Aluminum Dioxide, thus CAD welding. Of course there are some more goodies in there and more to the process than pour and light, but that's the basics. There are quite an assortment of powders and molds for all kinds of copper to copper, copper to steel, steel to steel and so-on. Even two diferent types of ingnition powder carefully blended in the container. That's why some of us grumpy old farts holler so loud when the young bucks are slamming and banging the containers around cuzz all they wanna see is fireworks.

The process is extremely dynamic, fast and fantastic. From powder to molten metal quicker than all the hiss, smoke and sizzle. By the time you realize there was a flash it's done. The sizzle and gurgle you hear is just the bubbling of the slag. The burn process is so fast it would normally be oxygen starved. As it is to be a stand alone and packaged process the method of obtaining enough oxygen is by converting the aluminum dioxide to oxygen during the process.

I wish I could have had some first hand knowledge of thermite but was never that fortunate. I have never looked but would think CAD Weld would have a site.

[Mike W]

We did one demo with a slab of thermite. Had a barrel full of stuff, lit it off and watched it burn. I tossed a half full soft drink can in and it came flying out.

[Pumpkinhead]

We did one demo with a slab of thermite. Had a barrel full of stuff, lit it off and watched it burn. I tossed a half full soft drink can in and it came flying out.

molten metal and liquids, yeah, real smart

[usmcpop]

Magnetite works better than rust because there's an extra Oxygen molecule in it. Here's the story on regular thermite:

http://www.theodoregray.com/Periodic...index.s12.html

This shows iron casting using thermite (scroll down about 1/2 way):

http://www.theodoregray.com/Periodic....html#sample14

Incidentally, the guy who wrote this writes a column in Popular Science. His site has all kinds of interesting stuff about elements and materials.