Where Can I get large amounts of magnesium cheap or for free?

The reason I ask, I had a bonfire at huntington beach last night with a few friends, and we got a pretty good fire going, about 4' in diameter, and probably 4' high. Inside you can see how intensely the fire is, it melt aluminum cans instantly. So I decided to throw in a Magnesium firestarter to see if it would glow. 5 minutes after the intense heat, it did, and it light up a good portion of the beach! Now I am wondering where I can get a larger portion of it, and throw in the next time!?

You might try your local metal scrap yard.

Say.... that just doesn't sound safe at all!

Wonder if I can find any...

Actually, now that I think about it - much of the interior of my EV is magnesium. The seat frames, rails, etc. Hmmm. Hardly anybody ever sits in the passenger seat...

In my high school I was lucky to avoid getting in trouble playing with small amounts of potassium nitrate and powdered magnesium mixed into various fused containers.

Be careful.

Somewhere on the internet there are instructions to get large portions of magnesium from old refegerators/freezers. I'll see if I can find it again.

OK, they're from water heaters and not refers:

4 Feet of Magnesium,, For Free! Interested?

Don't they use this stuff in fireworks?? Be careful!

McGyver just whittled up $800 bicycles with his Swiss Army Knife when he needed magnesium.

if they're shooting movies in your area, the
rails they track the camera along are magnesium..and remember, you can't put it out...

Magnesium shavings/turnings are also called thermite. Like someone else said, once it's on fire, you can't put it out with water (it strips oxygen out of the water and keeps on burning). Railroads used to use it to heat steel red-hot, to make it malleable I think. If you're really gonna play with it, be careful!

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Andre:
Magnesium shavings/turnings are also called thermite. ...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If I recall it right Thermite is not only magnesium but also aluminum filling and ironoxid mixed together in right amounts. Something like: 20gr ironoxid (Fe2O3), 7gr aluminum (Al), ontop of that some 3gr. of our beloved magnesium (Mg). Be careful when you fire it up because it throws lots of sparks and generates huge amounts of heat(~2500°C). You can burn a hole in a engine block, the train-tracks (what do you call them?) are welded together with that stuff. I would be very careful, only use it outside and mabe even not try it. The Surefire Beast is a babytoy against that stuff!

Klaus.

Thanks for the tips guys, and the warnings. I'll do a controlled burn, since now I know you cant put them out.

Last summer I bought one, and tried lighting fires on top of an old tree stump.

I used the CS Rod (Spark Rod) and Mag Starter.

Total utter waste of time and effort. (Altho fun)

I ended up using a DRILL to get the Mag Shavings, and, after a fire got started dumped the drilled out block on top of it.

It DOES go up big.

But don't depend on it to save your life.

I liked the GERBER WET-FIRE blocks. They appear to be styrofoam impregnated with Gasoline.

They come Foil Wrapped.

I would unwrap 'em and then dip 'em in Melted Wax.

Less likely to leak, methinks.

Or maybe Wax dip 'em while in the package!


Phil

(Who likes the Doesn't-blow-out-birthday candles best)

Magnesium is used in some cars, not only in wheels (95% of which are usually just aluminum anyways), but in some brackets for the instrument panel.

Also, some earlier watercooled VW engines had magnesium bits on them, the intake manifold, IIRC. I was told by a local fireman that if they responded to a car fire and it was a VW, they were to just let it burn and keep it contained unless they had certain chemicals or foams to put it out with.

Remembered it was some sort of VW engine that had magnesium parts.Saw a TV prog long time back about desert racers who used to make pyres with piles of mag parts from VWs and race around the dunes by the light

Adam

http://www.amm.com/index2.htm?/inside/roskanal/1998/rk031398.htm

"Volkswagen and magnesium

Volkswagen AG and magnesium have a long historical association. Most people are aware of the high magnesium content of the Beetle, each of which used approximately 46 pounds (21 kilograms) of die castings in its engine crank case and the transaxle housing assembly.

Thanks to the "People's Car", VW became a major consumer of magnesium in the 1950s and 1960s. Magnesium demand reached a peak of 42,000 tons in the early 1970s, accounting for about one quarter of world output at the time."
----------------------------------
If you ever get a VW transaxle case alight, watch out! Any moisture in the ground flashes to steam and launches the molten bits with impressive distance and velocity. Don't ask...

I knew a guy who worked in a machine shop where they turned magnesium. One of the machinists didn't keep his chip tray clean and wasn't using enough coolant. A chip coil ignited and brought the flame to the chip tray. All evacuated and the machine shop burned down.

I have had two similar fires with titanium chips until I started using a proper coolant system. Burns real white!

With a bottle of O2 and some rapid oxidizing metal, you might get to visit the next life real soon.

Reminds me of a party a few years ago, at which the main event was the attempt to ignite the allegedly magnesium case of an old NeXT computer on fire with a blowtorch. It never caught, which is probably a good thing for all concerned. Has anyone heard of one of these being successfully ignited?

The host also had plenty of his own tasty homebrew beer, so the evening was far from a waste...

(edited: by "had", I mean, "had available" - beer drinking is not a spectator sport!)

Yeah..for some reason they don't ignite with a blow torch, I had one on there for about 3-4mins, and the only thing that happened was the flint got off the magnesium. That fire I made had to be really intense.

Shave some off and light that. Magnesium can be ignited with a match.