Can you Ball Mill Magnesium?

[cocktail76]

Can you Ball Mill Magnesium? If not is there any practical way to powder Magnesium turnings. Maybe I should ask is there a less expensive way to obtain powdered Magnesium and/or Magnallium powder than Firefox and Skylighter?

[Polumna]

hi dude

 

 

yea that should be possible, but u must oopen the the jar for every hour,

also u need to coat ur magnesiumpowder with some oil/stearin.

 

 

I never have any succes with ball milling shavings, but i can get fileshavings in to a size of 300

mesh, but fillings are much more work then shavings from a drill machine

 

 

Polumna

[Wyvern]

Im not sure about magnesium but magnallium is easily powdered as its very brittle and if i recall magnesium is quite soft. but i dont have a lot of experience in that area, one thing is metal powders can be pyrophoric so research how to avoid this.

[Polumna]

hi

 

 

does anyone here how to coat Magnesium with linseed oil???

 

I have Kitchen linseed oil here, would that work???

 

 

 

Polumna

[Frozentech]

hi

 

 

does anyone here how to coat Magnesium with linseed oil???

 

I have Kitchen linseed oil here, would that work???

 

 

 

Polumna

I've never actually actually coated Mg with linseed oil myself, I bought a goodish quantity already treated.

 

The linseed oil used as a dietary supplement is what I think you are talking about ? It would not work "as is". Boiled linseed oil is used for coating Mg, which changes the molecular structure of the oil. It becomes a 'drying oil', which polymerizes on exposure to oxygen. Look in the paint sections of harware stores for 'boiled linseed oil'. Also, to speed up the polymerization some oils have drying agents ( a catalyst such as cobalt salts ) added. You can add the catalyst yourself, it's sold as "Japan Dryer", also in the paint section.

 

Kyle on Passfire kept promising us an article on linseed oil treatment, but it hasn't appeared yet. I am away from my library so I can't check Shimizu or any other references to see what there is there.

[moonshot]

I tried milling some aluminum turnings in my tumbler with brass media. The only thing it did was polish the brass to a very high shine! I think the only way to mill soft metal turnings to powder would be to use a high powered mill with a very abrasive media. I know for sure brass won't do the job but you never know until you try. I have had some success making fine AL powder by grinding it on a large rotary disc sander but it takes a lot of time.

[ewest]

Kyle on Passfire kept promising us an article on linseed oil treatment, but it hasn't appeared yet.

He does have that article on there about coating Magnesium with Potassium Dichromate though. That's some nasty stuff though and if you can avoid it I think I would.

[deadman]

Of course brass would be a bad idea for a metal grinding media. You need very hard media. 1/2" stainless steel ball bearings are a good, but expensive choice. I'd also suggest throwing in some stainless steel 1/4" sling shot ammo. I assume this would work well for Mg as well as Al and other metals.

[tentacles]

There's a guy selling 3/8" slingshot ammo by the pound on ebay - it's fairly reasonable. I was just thinking why not buy a 4 or 6 foot length of 3/4" steel rod and chop it into pieces? Or better yet, have a local welding shop chop it up for a few bucks. I know the shop by me would charge about $15 for 4' of rod AND chopping it up. Then you'd have cylinders, which are supposed to be better for ball [-less?] milling.

[hst45]

If you're up for a little work and some cheap media, try grinding down steel re-bar. An angle grinder and 20 minutes can turn-out pounds of steel cylinders, and re-bar is, well, FREE! At least it is if you live anywhere near a commercial construction site . There will always be a few lengths of old twisted bar around for the taking, and on most sites is just considered trash.

 

Funny thing about re-bar; the hardness varies greatly. A lot of the stuff used on highways and for Federal projects and such is spec'd for hardness, but the vast majority of commercial-use bar is "ungraded rod", which is made from miscellaneous melted junk steel. Whatever happens to go into the furnace that day determines the properties of the final product.

 

NOTE: do NOT use this media for ballmillng compounds, only for raw materials.

[Polumna]

hi dudes

 

 

I have change the media now and now i have 20g of magnesiumdust.

I ballmilled the shavings for 10hours. I used bigger Ballbearings( 1,5 instead of 0,8cm)

and i use more of them.

I opened the ball mill for every hour, and now i have some 200-300mesh flake magnesiumpowder.

the magnesium does stick on a sheet of newspaper.

the little ball mill is made from lego and a shavecream box

But the finest dust does stick on the walls from the shavecreambox!!! not good

I never think that it could be so easy, put the ball mill on drink a coffee and then look what the ball mill does

 

A foto of the magnesiumpowder/dust will follow!!!

It is time to make a 100g batch

 

 

Polumna

[FrankRizzo]

Be *very* careful if you mill the magnesium any further. As you know, magnesium is an excellent reducing agent and will happily combine with any oxidizer that might be present in your mill including the oxygen, carbon dioxide, or nitrogen in the air or the rust on your shave cream box or bearings for instance. There are many pyros more experienced than yourself who will not mill magnesium under any circumstances because the hazards are too great.

[blaadjes]

I've seen something on the internet a while ago, and I think it could work just great for small amounts of aluminium powder.

Don't know if it works for magnesium, but you could try.

 

The method is like this:

 

You have to get a barbell with some massive discs that are very heavy, and have a smooth surface (at least two of them)

 

Just put the two discs on eachother, with some steal balls b'tween them.

The only thing that you will have to do is turn the upper disc.

 

Just put some aluminium foil between the discs with some petrolium, to prevent oxidizing.

 

Now if you keep turning the upper disc, the balls of steel will roll the al foil untill it will break up and eventualy you'll get a fine powder.

[Umphrey]

Polumna:I opened the ball mill for every hour, and now i have some 200-300mesh flake magnesiumpowder.

the magnesium does stick on a sheet of newspaper.

"200-300mesh flake magnesiumpowder" How did you arrive at this mesh? Do you actually have a 300mesh screen, if so, how do you manage to even screen anything through it? I have a 160 mesh screen, this is a great nuisance to get powder through it, and it creates a massive mess of airfloat particles.

Polumna:the little ball mill is made from lego and a shavecream box

But the finest dust does stick on the walls from the shavecreambox!!! not good 

I never think that it could be so easy, put the ball mill on drink a coffee and then look what the ball mill does

WHAT? It is only with great difficulty that I attempt to understand the above, even then I am met with nothing but confusion. Atleast try to make some kind of sense....I cannot fathom what crazy ball mill you're describing.

 

 

blaadjes:

You have to get a barbell with some massive discs that are very heavy, and have a smooth surface (at least two of them)

 

Just put the two discs on eachother, with some steal balls b'tween them.

The only thing that you will have to do is turn the upper disc.

 

Just put some aluminium foil between the discs with some petrolium, to prevent oxidizing.

 

Now if you keep turning the upper disc, the balls of steel will roll the al foil untill it will break up and eventualy you'll get a fine powder.

This sounds sort of like how certain types of aluminum is produced industrially--I recall certain types of flake aluminum is made in a manner similar to this. I do not believe it is adaptable for amateur use-But by all means, if you're able to devise a workable method, go for it!

 

I see this as the all too common "reinvent X basic device," but instead of making something useful or better, you've simply made a tedious, inefficient, and difficult cumbersome machine.

 

A properly designed ball mill can grind relatively great quantities of aluminum foil into useful flitters in just over a day. if allowed to go for longer-keep in mind to open the mill every couple hours to allow the Al to oxidize-, it can be ground down into an extremely fine flour like powder. I typically use steel BBs or Nickels(yes, the coinage) to produce al flitters. Magnesium turnings/swarf will also work with this method, it just takes slightly longer to break up the larger curls.

[markx]

Pwdering magnesium or aluminum by ball mill is a real pain, but 50/50 magnalium alloy can be powdered with ease as it is extremely brittle and crumbles in rather mild conditions. Smaller batches can be ground to size by a mortar and pestle.

[Zumber]

Can you Ball Mill Magnesium? If not is there any practical way to powder Magnesium turnings. Maybe I should ask is there a less expensive way to obtain powdered Magnesium and/or Magnallium powder than Firefox and Skylighter?

 

The coarsed Mg can be powdered with the aid of ''kitchen mixture'',.And pass that 'mg' through cotten cloth to get very fine powdered mg.I don't know is it practical or not but i do

[dagabu]

The coarsed Mg can be powdered with the aid of ''kitchen mixture'',.And pass that 'mg' through cotten cloth to get very fine powdered mg.I don't know is it practical or not but i do

 

That is way beyond my comfort zone, I would be donning leather gauntlets, leather coat, full face shield cause when that pile goes, it will flash (not explode) and the heat will be immense.

 

Ill pass on that.

[Algenco]

That is way beyond my comfort zone, I would be donning leather gauntlets, leather coat, full face shield cause when that pile goes, it will flash (not explode) and the heat will be immense.

 

Ill pass on that.

 

 

and you would still get some very bad burns!!

[YourBoiPyro]

As I'm reading this, a direct and simple way to ball-mill magnesium hasn't really been answered. I would not like to explode. How do I ball mill magnesium without exploding? This would be a great thing to know.

[ronmoper76]

As I'm reading this, a direct and simple way to ball-mill magnesium hasn't really been answered. I would not like to explode. How do I ball mill magnesium without exploding? This would be a great thing to know.

simple answer i believe is,there isn't a definitive safe way to do it. Will it light maybe not,could it? absolutely

And if it does its gonna hurt you faster than you can run. The heat is immense,magnesium burns damn hot and the uv radiation can probably blind you.

I did it before,but i was stupid. The more i dig for information here the little mishaps i have had along the way,the more it convinces me how crazy it is.

I got burnt severely once from a tray of stars being stupid and the pain i went through is in my mind like it was yesterday,its scary stuff and not forgiving.

Buy a 1lb of magnesium for 20$ make a water dichromate solution like you see on passfire,put a mask and gloves on and mix it up outside,and dry it on paper in

the shade.YOUR DONE,lol I did 5lbs of it like that and the little bit i use here and there will last me a long time. The time and effort milling it isn't worth it

financially or losing your life.

Edited May 26, 2021 by ronmoper76

[Arthur]

It's possible to mill metals but usually very unwise. ALL of the mill accident's I've heard of were magnesium mills, and they can have lots of colateral damage. It's much safer to buy milled metal powder. I have no idea how it's milled industrially to keep the fire risk down to industrial health and safety standards.

[YourBoiPyro]

Thanks for the help Edited May 29, 2021 by YourBoiPyro

[YourBoiPyro]

How fine is the magnesium? That you explained in your method? Edited May 29, 2021 by YourBoiPyro

[YourBoiPyro]

simple answer i believe is,there isn't a definitive safe way to do it. Will it light maybe not,could it? absolutely

And if it does its gonna hurt you faster than you can run. The heat is immense,magnesium burns damn hot and the uv radiation can probably blind you.

I did it before,but i was stupid. The more i dig for information here the little mishaps i have had along the way,the more it convinces me how crazy it is.

I got burnt severely once from a tray of stars being stupid and the pain i went through is in my mind like it was yesterday,its scary stuff and not forgiving.

Buy a 1lb of magnesium for 20$ make a water dichromate solution like you see on passfire,put a mask and gloves on and mix it up outside,and dry it on paper in

the shade.YOUR DONE,lol I did 5lbs of it like that and the little bit i use here and there will last me a long time. The time and effort milling it isn't worth it

financially or losing your life.

So how does one make a water dichromate? And a "passfire"? I would love any excuse not to explode. If this method really does powder magnesium it is very much appreciated. Thanks

[FrankRizzo]

The problem with milling magnesium is that you expose fresh new surface area on a very reactive metal. Magnesium will happily snatch the oxygen from the air, any other metal oxides, from CO2, and even nitrogen. It loves reacting with anything it can, and that makes it very dangerous to process.

 

A much better idea is to make a 50/50 alloy of magnesium and aluminum and then process that. Your best bet it to just purchase it in the grade needed though.

Edited May 29, 2021 by FrankRizzo