FAO Randy & Vernon

There is a quick way to tell if the materail is magnesium alloy . I am not familiar with much non-ferrous welding but I believe you can take a sliver of the alloy and put it under a torch to check if it flares. I have never done it myself. Many years ago I did attempt to use scrap for casting aluminum. I did know chainsaws were magnesium but did not know about VW blocks or Lawnboy lawnmower decks. I didn't get a catastrophic fire but had to discard the melt. Randy

8-) I could have some fun with bits of the gash case, will try slivers. Old metal school pencil sharpeners were meant to be quite a fave with kids in this regard. I had never heard of it until recently.

You were lucky, what happened?

Newbie type questions if you wouldn't mind. What's:

Keyhole welding.

Weldment

Better you should eat some humble pie than to have a rather spectacular bonfire. If you torch off the magnesium is will indeed be spectacular.

Cheers.

Balders wrote:

"Randy Zimmerman" wrote in message news:92oIe.111008$5V4.102908@pd7tw3no... | There is a quick way to tell if the materail is magnesium alloy . I am | not familiar with much non-ferrous welding but I believe you can take a | sliver of the alloy and put it under a torch to check if it flares. I have | never done it myself. | Many years ago I did attempt to use scrap for casting aluminum. I did | know chainsaws were magnesium but did not know about VW blocks or Lawnboy | lawnmower decks. I didn't get a catastrophic fire but had to discard the | melt. | Randy

When we were kids my brother caught a Lawnboy lawnmower on fire. I never knew how it happened, but that mower was shot anyway. I wasn't there, but the flare was so bright that my neighbor across the street came running. This was in East Texas, and the mower was way, way out of eyeshot from where my neighbor was, and I figure it had to be mighty damn bright to get his attention. My brother, of course, had never encountered a magnesium fire before, but my neighbor came running, with a shovel, so I'm guessing he knew exactly what it was just from the fact it was brighter than the existing sunlight. I just remember a lawnmower shaped pile of ash and a steel handle laying on the ground and grass burnt away a few feet. After that there were no more Lawnboys at our house!

Not very spectacular since I was adding broken pieces to a pot of melted aluminum scrap. Eventually the top surface glowed and then formed a massive amount of dross/oxide. I gave up and took the pot outside and poured on a section of DRY gravel. Most of the pot was loaded with oxide rather than anything fluid. There were of course pieces of glowing here and there and a good amount of smoke. Keyhole refers to the old shape of a door keyhole. As you are welding up a butt joint the edges ahead of your weld pool melt enlargening the gap forming a keyhole shape. Too much heat and the keyhole ends up being a plain old hole! If you can maintain the key hole you have full penetration and are in a groove so to speak in terms of heat and speed. Weldment is a assembly that is welded together. a bicylce frame thatis welded together is a weldment as opposed to a forging or a casting.

Randy

My buddy broke the lowers on his mountain bike fork a few months ago. They are a magnesium casting, so I wanted to see if the piece would burn. It finally did, but we really had to work at it. It wasn't the kind of thing that would catch fire accidentally. Pictures and story here:

Well, do I have a Volksie anecdote for ya...

Years ago, when I wuz a young man, I had a '63 VW Karmann Ghia. It had a six volt system. And it would never start.

So, I kept it parked on a hilltop about a half mile from where I was building a huge A-frame house.

There were some red rags in the floor of the KG.

As to the A-frame house, it was a splendid three story structure built from bridge timbers.

One night I was sleeping in the third story "bedroom". I had a Yucatecan (Mexican) hammock strung from the rafters. Just like a mountain climber. There was no roof. There was no floor. Only the roof joists rising 35 feet into the air and a concrete floor way down low.

On the night in question in the wee hours of the pre-dawn I was awakened by voices. A neighbor shouted up: "Tuck! Are you up there?"

I recognized the voice. It was a neighbor who was also a volunteer fireman.

He shouted up: "Your Karmann Ghia caught fire. It's a total loss. The more water we sprayed on it the faster it burned! Do you have any idea what caused this fire?!"

I shouted down: Damn! I don't know, Max. But you can definitely rule out that it was an insurance job!"

Then I turned over, proud of myself for making such a witty comeback in the dead of night and right out of a sound sleep to boot!

The next day I saw that the entire transaxle and engine were grayish dust. The entire volume of both cases robably would have fit into a one pound coffee. The gears and innards were all melted together and deformed.

The car was er.. "toast". No sir, I would not blithely strike an arc on a VW type one engine case.

It is at the very top of my list. Just above "committing insurance fraud" on my short list of things not to do.

Vern> There is a quick way to tell if the materail is magnesium alloy . I am

"Randy and Vernon". Seein' my name in the same sentence with Randy's is the welder's ball equivalent of seein' my name in the marquis lights of Broadway.

Grasshopper

ROFL!!! I hope you have your coveralls on cause the floor is pretty dirty :'))