Milling Magnesium

[mormanman]

Man milling Mg sounds to dangerous. I think that I'll just stick to grinding like Polumna.

[crazyboy25]

i admit i have no expirence with milling magnesium but dont sand it you will most likely contaminate in with the grit.

[Pyroblast]

Hey guys.

I have a quick question about milling magnesium.

I bought a pound of flake off ebay and I'm gonna mill it down to powder in my ball mill.

I recently made black powder in the ball mill, so I took each piece of the mill apart and cleaned it thoroughly with soap and warm water. After letting everything dry, the lead balls still make grey marks when you rub them against paper or the milling jar. I assume this is just the lead wearing off, as I washed them very carefully.

Is it safe to mill the magnesium like this?

BTW, I'm gonna mill it outside and let it cool for several hours before opening the milling jar.

 

Thanks

[tentacles]

First, it wouldn't even work with lead media - the Mg is much harder than the lead, all you would achieve is to contaminate your lead (permanently) with Mg.

 

Second, it's not so much about the heat generated from milling, as the heat that is created by exposing all that microscopic, freshly exposed Mg to oxygen.

 

Also, I noticed when I milled some Mg, it embedded into the jar surface. Could probably clean it up by "milling" some HCl, but I'll just replace the jar.

[Bonny]

I think there is some good info on the forum about milling magnesium... I use seperate milling jars for most things (metals, BP,oxidizers etc ) Fortunately I use empty peanut butter containers, so they are easy to obtain, especially as my old lady is pregnant and on a peanut butter sandwich kick

[Pyroblast]

Would it work with glass marbles? Lead media and marbles are all I currently have.

[Mumbles]

Sure wouldn't.

[invisibleworld]

As I said preveiously, it will ball mill to a powder from flake. This takes a few days and I used chrome plated ball bearings about 3/4 to 1" in diameter. they are hard enough to crush the Magnesium flake to a fine powder. Once again I repeat "BE CAREFULL" when you open your tumbler container. The Mag will not spontainiously ignite inside the container on it's own from a lack of oxidizer, but it gets too hot to touch without burning yourself. It needs several hours to cool down before opening. Once the air hits it without cooling down it will start to smoke and small particals around the lid will light up and could ignite the rest. So PLEASE let it cool down a few hours shaking a little every half hour or so to mix it up before you expose it to the atmosphear. I got my media (chrome plated steel balls) on E-Bay. search for ball bearings or ball mill media. You need something rather large and heavy to grind well 3/4 to 1" work good. Don't forget to let it COOL DOWN first.

[asilentbob]

For the record $8 for 1lb of Mg shavings is NOT cheap. And thats not even considering shipping.

 

There are very good prices out there for bulk shavings... if you don't end up likeing how things are going... no big deal... you can likely sell most of it back on ebay or at club shoots or what not and still make a profit.

[invisibleworld]

Thanks, I thought 8 bucks was a good deal compared to what they want for the powder. It just makes sense to just mill your own in the long run.

[mormanman]

I can get shaving, from a guy I know that build missle, for free.

[invisibleworld]

You don't get any cheaper then "free" You see what some of these places want for 100 mesh powder? That's uncheap to the tenth power. 10

..........................CHEAP,NOT