Talking of wingnuts

Likely a zinc alloy.

Harold

Potmetal wingnuts. Good grief! Better bring a magnet next time you buy bolts at that store, should you choose to ever return.

Ah, but then how will you know they're potmetal and not stainless or titanium, eh?

Oh, golly, you're right: the magnet won't suffice. Stainless is easily discernable from potmetal by color, magnet tells the tale of whether the non-stainless part is potmetal or zinc-plated steel, but titanium wingnuts would cause some confusion. Don'cha hate it when careless shoppers get the titanium wingnuts mixed up in the bin with the potmetal wingnuts?

I'm glad you're the one who said it.

-- Ed Huntress

If you want to use the pot metal nuts, just soft solder them with a propane torch. The joint will be stronger than the pot metal. Bugs

Just think of them as sacrificial parts to prevent overtorqing and stripping of the threaded pieces they are screwed onto.

Jeff

Yes, that's often an issue with me when I visit the local feed store for wingnuts. Older potmetal is very hard to tell from titanium. I always bring a pair of vice grips to the store and twist on the wings: if you can bend the little wings into a pretzel shape and have them spring back you know it's titanium. If they break then just kinda kick them under the shelf.

Just ask the guy for some of the copper sulfate they use for control of aphids, cabbage worms, adult fungus gnats, mealybugs, mites and thrips. A drop of copper sulfate solution will make a black spot on potmetal, has no effect on aluminum or titanium.

On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 23:26:29 -0600, Don Foreman vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

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I agree. Treat with caution! It was only Bunnings "where lower pricees are only the beginning" (followed by breaking and returning ghe goods....)

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 15:07:57 -0500, Jeff Wisnia vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

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I reckon these would prevent damage to your _fingers_ !

Now another chemical to carry around in a ring on a finger. Hum - might have to develop a test kit (like pools/spa's testing for chemicals) to test metals at the scrap yard and the metal stores :-)

Martin

(...)

Hey, publish what you have so far, why doncha?

A 2% solution of silver nitrate is supposedly used to detect manganize bronze (Drop turns the metal grey); to sort aluminum from magnesium (Drop turns magnesium black, does not affect aluminum).

--Winston