Diane is out of town for the evening so Gabe and I had a quiet meal and decided to do the only guy;s night thing we could think of. We interrupted homework (mine and his) to run outside and melt a hole in some scrap metal with a thermite bomb. Thermite is a combination of iron oxide and aluminum dust that makes an intense 2500 degree C ..

THermite is fun stuff it works like this

Fe2O3 + 2 Al → 2 Fe + Al2O3

 

here’s gabe mixing the iron oxide and aluminum

we through in a few screws to melt too

in goes the magnesium ribboon to ligh the stuff

we wanted to see if we could bunr through an empty acetone can ..

gabe torched the magnesium and quickly got out of the way.

whooooosh !

what was left was a gooey mass of molten metal tht took about 15 minutes to cool

here it is still glowing about 10 minutes later.

the molten metal burned right through the top..

here’s a pool of iron

and two of the welded screws. the others had vansihed

pretty fun !.. now back to homework !

nite all, nite sam

-me