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Making Iron Oxide from Iron Powder


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Posted
Hi, I was wondering how to make pure iron oxide from iron powder. Thanks!
Posted
It can be done, but both red and black iron oxides are extremely cheap from most pottery supply stores. Making it, filtering, etc. are extremely messy.
Posted

Indeed, if you have ever handled fine Iron oxides, Fe2O3 particularly, it STAINS.

 

As FrankRizzo said you can get it cheaply from pottery suppliers. Cheaply being cheaper than I have ever seen Iron powder!

Posted
so is there anything i could use it for?
Posted
Use what for? Iron Powder? Iron powder is great in fountains and stuff. Branching orange sparks, real nice looking. There are some streamers that use it too.
Posted
There are some streamers that use it too.

 

 

Do you mind sharing?

I've searched for a comet/star comp. with Iron/Steel since i managed to make a reasonable bit.

All ive found are fountain formulas and nothing else.

[the powder is ~60-70 mesh]

Posted
thanks so much !
Posted

Wow those will do!

What exactly is the difference vissually compared to a normal charcoal streamer?

More of a bright gold I would suppose?

Posted

Yes, and if your carbon content is correct it will branch - sparks split explosively!

 

A neat effect!

Posted
Fe Streamer

Potassium nitrate 45 parts

Sulfur 6 parts

Charcoal af 29 parts

Cast iron 30-40 mesh 22 parts

Dextrin 5 parts

Comp was mixed on the NC with acetone (?), in order to avoid of the oxidation of iron. I use is pine coal, I consider it most suitable for such purposes. Effect considerably richer than Tiger tail. It is better to use cast iron shavings, they give the richer effect.

Comp is ball milled, as for lift powder- 2.5 hrs. with brass balls in a rock tumbler is good enough. The fineness of the charcoal doesn't matter.

As opposed to most charcoal stars, which depend on coarse coal for tailing, this one is designed to be broken hard and burn very vigorously to scatter sparks. Designed for cut stars and a flash break, it's also good pumped as a comet or candle star.

No priming is necessary. Don't try to dry big ones too fast, because crusting may occur.

You can also roll it as a layer in a color-changing star, but it's a little easier if you mill a mixture without dextrin and then bind with dextrin solution during rolling. (Credit: "Robert")

 

 

Is ther anything I can use besides acetone? I dont have any @ the moment. How long does it take for the iron to oxidize if I used water:alcohol?

Posted
It'd be oxidized by the time the stars were dry probably. More conventional wisdom would say to coat the iron with paraffin first. Search here, there are instructions. The dextrin in the composition means it is designed to be water bound.
Posted
Iron oxide is easy to make. If you use DC current hooked to a couple nails in water it will oxidize the iron into iron oxide.
Posted

It actually does not yield Iron Oxide, nor is that in anyway an efficient way to make anything.

 

From the instructions given with the iron star, I got the impression that the composition was bound with NC. It specifies composition, not strictly iron.

Posted
Thank you Jaketheman, I have read about that before and just wanted to verify it. Thanks
Posted
Jaketheman should not post information on things he knows nothing about. This is not a Totse replacement.
  • 2 weeks later...
Posted (edited)
It'd be oxidized by the time the stars were dry probably. More conventional wisdom would say to coat the iron with paraffin first. Search here, there are instructions. The dextrin in the composition means it is designed to be water bound.

 

I have briefly searched here and found nothing about coating Steel in Parrafin wax.

 

Do I just:

1. Heat Parrafin wax granules until it melts

2. Place Steel granules inside

3. Take them out with the wax still being a liquid

4. leave to cool for a few minutes.

5 Use them

Edited by nick2354
Posted (edited)

I would heat up a small pot filled with wax, get it reasonably hot, dump in your iron powder and then quickly decant off most of the wax and then filter out the filings.

 

May be difficult if your filings are really fine, next best option would be to use wax powder in a mill jar of your filings.

Edited by WarezWally
Posted
I have briefly searched here and found nothing about coating Steel in Parrafin wax.

 

Do I just:

1. Heat Parrafin wax granules until it melts

2. Place Steel granules inside

3. Take them out with the wax still being a liquid

4. leave to cool for a few minutes.

5 Use them

 

 

I suppose you mean iron?

Posted
A more exact approach is used Wally. That method, no matter how hard you try, will always result in way too much wax. I think around 2-3% is what is normally used.
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