Metal Grinding Machine

[deadman]

Hey there everyone. I found this little guide a while ago and was very impressed. Now I'm ready to make one, but I am having a lot of trouble on deciding how worth it is. I really don't know all the aspects of it. And was wondering if anyone could help me. The author and original website are impossible for me to find right now. If anyone could get a hold of the author that would be great. My regards.

Edit: Link to the tool is http://www.members.pyroforum.nl/gamekeeper/metal_grindi...ng_machine.html


Sorry about that

[mr.stijntje]

Well, I haven't built one, but in the picture/video section in the dutch part of the forum, Pure Chemical posted pictures of his metal grinding machine
this is the url
maybe these pictures will be usefull for you

gr.
mr. Stijntje

[deadman]

Wow those pictures tell almost even more than the entire tutorial. Thank you a lot for the link. Unfortunatley I don't speak Dutch. Wow it would be great if I did though. Three questions: Is water used to catch the dust? Isn't there oxidization of aluminum if it is left in water especially with as much surface area as exposed in powder? I saw the author of that post used a "brick" of Al foil. Is aluminum foil good enough to use in stars? Or flash powders?

[mr.stijntje]

It sounds strange, but alu foil is very pure and oxidizing of aluminium can be stopped by adding a very little bit of boric acid to the water.

[HellBound>LordOfDark]

Or by taking other liquids like tuoleen for instance, but the boric acid way is much cheaper :roll:

[deadman]

Alright so boric acid is not that hard to get a hold of for me. Now what would the concentration need to be? At school we've got a 2 gallon jar with crystals labeled boric acid. Is that the right stuff?

[mr.stijntje]

Yup, I think it's the right stuff, and you really dont need a lot of it, 2 grams on a liter of water.

edit:
In his picture topic, Pure Chemical says that 5 grams on one grinding session wil do the trick.

[deadman]

thanks a lot. I also found a bottle labeled: boric acid roach killer. At a store called Floyd's General Store. That should work well too I'm guessing. Another question instead of another post. Has anyone made this and what kind of motor did they use. I've tooken a part quite a few fans looking for one that will work, but they all seam to have the same dinky motor which I end up shorting out while tinkering with it. I know thats's my fault but none of these seam to be able to keep spinning when adding pressure with my fingers. I know pulleys should help, but what would be a good motor for handling a 40+ weight load on the grinding barrel?

[-Pk-]

My guess is the motor of an old washing machine should do good enough.

[Duvel]

Why are you all doing difficuld?
I use a drill.. after a couple of hours he isn't warm yet (good cooling :wink: ).

[deadman]

Washing machine motor? that is a great idea. And in his tutorial I believe he mentions using the spinning part of the machine to use as the grinding barrell or whatever it is called. Has anyone tried grinding with an angle grinder supposably you can get 100's of grams for 20 minutes grinding out of aluminum blocks, and it requires under 4 hours of ball milling to be used in flash powders.

[PureChemical]

Orginal information from;
http://members.shaw.ca/justin.le/

Information on his site;
http://members.shaw.ca/justin.le/grinder/grinder.html

[Blaf]

Hello Deadman!

Personally, I never tried to make Al dust by grinding Al stock with angle grinder. I suppose that if you grind pure Al, the wheel would get clogged very quickly and you get nothing but semi-molten crumbles. But I saw images somewhere on the Net, where some guy was grinding beer and Coca Cola cans held in a vice against plastic bucket and he really got something...aside what purity of the powder he actually got at the end. Anyhow, even if you succeeded in this grinding endeavour, the powder you get would still be more or less unusable in flash composition while in fountains and stars would behave quite OK.

Blaf