DIY -325 Bright Aluminum powder
Entry posted by Ventsi
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How do you make Aluminum powder?
You can sand it , you can file it , you can make a machine to do it for you , or you can take a can of paint and take the pigment right out of it! Now I know there are paints that are not 100% Al but I went on the website and looked at the MSDS which states there is nothing other than Flake Aluminum - exactly what we're looking for.
Not having any Aluminum to play with I've lookid into many ways of making it and this one semed easiest least labour intensive and such.
What you'll need :
1.One quart can of Aluminum paint: 8.99
2. One quart can of Acetone: 5.99
I picked my can of paint from way in the back and was carefull handling it not to shake it too much, Why? Because we want the powder to settle to the bottom , so paint cans in the back probably haven't been touched for a while , so the fine light fluffy Al powder isn't all stirred up in the paint.
Once you buy the paint let it settle for about a week or two .When you open it the top should look something like this:
Brownish with a cloudy texture to it, dip a dowel to see if the powder has settled BE CAREFULL though! You dont want stir the floaty powder up .
Once you scoop all the liquid out you'll have silver paste left . It shoulld look like this:
Now fill the can almost to the rim with your acetone and stir thr heck out of it.REMEMBER ACETONE WILL MAKE YOU DIZZY [ I would say the correct word but its lacking somewhere] [/color]AND CAN CATCH FIRE , DO THIS OUTDOORS!
Stir like crazy , close the can , shake , open ,stir , repeat numerously.
Let this stew settle for a good week -week and a half, scoop all the acetone out which will have some Al powder in it , mine had a bunch, here it is after I saved it and let it settle:
Now let the paste you have at the bottom dry out , you can redo the Acetone prcedure to wash off even more of the binders/oils which I highly recommend. Once thats done let your paste dry for atleast 4-5 days, or you can spread it on a large surface 1/8" thick and wait 1-2 days, which ever one you choose I went with the 5 day process.
Once the paste has dried out break up the chunks of Al using some latex glove covered hands. Make sure all of its bone dry by breaking it up it should be at all gummy , it shoud be very easy to break up by hand.
Now push this trough a hard metal screen , the finer , the better around 60-80 mesh would be best.I used a kitchen collander though ,so my stuff is a bit coarse.
Now trow this in your ballmill for an hour or two to completely de-clumpalize it , make sure to open you jar and stir it around every 1/2 hour or so!
A scoop of the 150g result...
Enjoy, and if you do try this please send me some feedback, negative -positive , it awlays helps.
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