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Dark German Al


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#16 E-tech

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Posted 25 November 2008 - 07:36 PM

Lamp Black does not come from paper, if comes from the incomplet combustion of plastics, fat, or hydrocarbon (I'm sure there's other sources); Old news paper won't produce lamp black even when degassed in a retort is will only make charcoal.

Eckart is a pigment manufacturer so I'm guessing it's initial use was either pigments or pyro there's not that many use for a powder that fine.

As for the ratio, that depends on the paper (mostly the thickness of coating on the paper). But with out a stamp mill of a hammer mill you wont be able to acheive the 1-5 micron sizes needed.


bummer- ball mill won't do it, eh?
Ah, well. Perhaps a carbon coated Al will be good enough. Can you recommend a good starting amount for a paper/Al ratio to load into a retort? hmmm- what would be the best way to test the reactivity of powdered Al and compare it to a "Carbon black Al"?

---ah, yes- the dangers of blending foil- I've tried it, had no problems with amounts up to 50 grams at a time (heavier than that tended to strain the cheap blender motor). letting the dust settle before opening the blender seems to mitigate the hazard- along with a 15 meter extension cord, and a nearby fire extinguisher.

Edited by E-tech, 25 November 2008 - 07:40 PM.


#17 cooperman435

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Posted 25 November 2008 - 08:33 PM

I don't see what your trying to achieve E-Tech? Im assuming dark pyro ali for Flash use in which case Ill tell you now there's no point continuing along these tracks it simply isn't possible at home to make 1-5 micron ali suitable for the job.

#18 bigtonyicu

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Posted 26 November 2008 - 01:21 AM

I don't see what your trying to achieve E-Tech? Im assuming dark pyro ali for Flash use in which case Ill tell you now there's no point continuing along these tracks it simply isn't possible at home to make 1-5 micron ali suitable for the job.



Well it is... but unless you plan on making LOTS of it... you'll be working for ever just to pay off the gear, I can't imagine making a good Hammer mill for less then 500$ (CAD) plus the cost of your raw material.

As for using charcoal with fine AL that's not even in the ball bark. Even if you had the same micron size with the same amount of carbon (%) you'd end up with 2 problems. The manufacturing process for "Pyro Dark" binds the carbon black to the Al making it possible to transfer the energy to the metal, just adding air float will suck energy away from the Al; to make it worst charcoal doesn't do a great job at absorbing energy in the first place it actually reflects a lot of it.

As for you blender yes it will make "Fine Aluminum" but no were near 1-5 micron size of "Dark Al". Plus keep in mind that every time you 1/2 the cube size you end up with 8 times the surface area. so you might end up being able to make 300-400 mesh size with a blender, and that's about 8 step up in cube, so that means you have 1/64th the surface area, hence 1/64 the reaction area*(the fraction of the energy absorption) so your AL will be around 100 times slow then dark Al.

Sorry to burst you bubble but better the get facts straight before you start spending money on things that won't give you what you want (isn't this the 4 or 5 time I write something like this on making sub-mesh aluminum)

#19 Bonny

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Posted 26 November 2008 - 03:46 PM

Sorry to burst you bubble but better the get facts straight before you start spending money on things that won't give you what you want (isn't this the 4 or 5 time I write something like this on making sub-mesh aluminum)


Probably...a lot of people don't seem to want to put in the time reading. Hopefully the mods will clean up a lot of the double topic, same question rubbish on here.




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