Morgan
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Homemade Thermosteel
I was wondering if anybody had tried making this adhesive supposedly good for 2400 degrees F? Seems like a useful Make Magazine DIY material to make
yourself if feasible. Such a little bottle costs a fair amount at the store. One time I bought a small bottle of Thermosteel but never got around to
using it and it was rock solid a year or so after purchase in a hot garage. So I don't know what the shelf life is. I have a quart of water glass in a
tall plastic bottle that too has settled and there's about a 3 centimeter rock solid sediment that has formed on the bottom, although the liquid part
is still syrupy. Maybe water evaporation causes this or could it be possible for it to occur in a completely sealed bottle over time?
The msds said Thermosteel is made up of sodium silicate and steel fines. I am curious if the steel fines are needle-shaped like a fiber or if a simple
iron or steel powder would work. Today I just wanted to see if some 400 mesh aluminum powder and sodium silicate would form something hard but after
blowtorching it, it didn't hold up or set to a hard glassy material. Maybe some fine steel wool that was tumbled for a bit would make some
interlocking mix with the water glass I have. Steel wool has an oil or some coating on it to prevent rust so perhaps that would be a factor too if
attempting steel wool. I've some 1000 mesh magnesium but it will probably not work, but I just thought I could try it to see what it does. Could there
be some other agent that helps the waterglass/steel mix to set properly? I might try a slower drying or setting process to see if that helps too. A
piece of aluminum tubing I toyed with was roughed up on a wire wheel to improve bonding. It is said to bond with most metals.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DAcQnbmMzE#t=1m19 s
In the specification tab it says 12 hours setting time.
http://shop.advanceautoparts.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/p...
MSDS
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&a...
[Edited on 13-10-2013 by Morgan]
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macckone
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This should be easy to make. It is simply sodium silicate (easily available) and ground up steel. Theoretically you could make the sodium silicate
from glass and sodium hydroxide but it is easier to just buy it. Ground up steel can be made from steel wool, chop it up then throw it in a blender.
Not chopping it up first would of course ruin the blender and it isn't good for the blender even after chopping it up. A ball mill is easy to make
and commonly used in pyrotechnics to make steel wool into powder.
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Morgan
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The aluminum powder and sodium silicate/waterglass mix that I had leftover of which I didn't heat with a torch to dry seems to have set into a fairly
hard mass.
I suppose if you had a microscope you could look at the particles of steel fines in the commercial product and get some idea about their size and
shape. Maybe even ordinary fiberglass particles would work if you weren't concerned about extreme heat, fused quartz another thing to try. Recall
Thermosteel is supposedly good up to 2400 F. Different additives might be better suited for different applications or rates of thermal expansion.
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