Can I use Perlite to anneal steel?

[price403]

I have dozens of cubic feet of perlite because I have a greenhouse business. I thought perlite might be a good alternative to vermiculite, which is hard to get in my region. Is there any down side to using it? I know it's high in silica but I'm not sure that steel heated for annealing would be hot enough to melt it.

[Frosty]

Perlite has a melting temp of around 2,000f and works just fine for annealing, I use it regularly. As I recall it's heat puffed mica, not silicates. I certainly could be wrong though.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Jack Evers]

Perlite has a melting temp of around 2,000f and works just fine for annealing, I use it regularly. As I recall it's heat puffed mica, not silicates. I certainly could be wrong though.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

Mica is a sheet silicate (phyllosilicate).

[windancer]

Absolutely- that's all I use.

Dave

[dimenickel]

make sure its very dry...    if it gets wet, it doesn't work well

 

i find cerwool, inswool, kaowool works much better

[ThomasPowers]

Vermiculite is a puffed mica; perlite---mined about 2 miles from where I am sitting, is a volcanic rock that is processed to make the gardening stuff.

 

And yes it works well for annealing; Sunday I threw in a couple of handfuls of it on top of the firebrick in my forge that a student had sludged with flux, seemed to help and I had no bentonite handy.

[Frosty]

Thanks for the corrections guys. Mica is a silicate and vermiculite is puffed mica. I'll try to remember.

 

Frosty the Lucky.