What to do with 20 gallons of rust? LOL

[territorialmillworks]

They recently mucked the rust out of two water tankers at work.  So what can you do with this other than put it in the dumpster  ????

[Nobody Special]

Won't say thermite, won't say thermite, won't say thermite...........dang it!

[jmccustomknives]

Do you have an annoying neighbor or in-law you don't like? :ph34r:

[ThomasPowers]

Smelt it back to iron/steel!  Rust is an iron ore after all---as is scale

[Dogsoldat]

Option A or Option B   that is the question.  either sounds like a worthwhile experiment.  have heard of iron around fruit trees to make them grow better but can't remember my source on that one so it could be sketchy  (  word doesn't look right but anyways...)

[Dabbsterinn]

iron around fruit trees and roses work well, i  gave my mom a jar full of scale when she bought a new rose, she says that she's never seen a rose grow like that

[Glenn]

Irnsrgn gave several suggestions about common things such as rust and it's uses. Not sure it was on the forum but was in the chat room.

[Smithy.Travis]

I'm going to have to go with Nobody Special on this one. THermite all the way! I've fooled around with it once before, that wasa great day!

 

~Travis

[ThomasPowers]

There was a chap over at swordforum who was smelting using thermite to make unusual alloys---very interesting up until the post that he had stopped as he was going blind...use thermite with CAUTION.

[SpankySmith]

I've always heard about using it for plants but never tried it.  Hmmmm... now I'm gonna' have to sweep up some of my scale and give it a go with the roses. 

[Nobody Special]

Really, I'd be more tempted to smelt it down and/or try for a billet. I was more commenting on the kinda stupid thing I would do, plus I've just been seeing a lotta posts popping up all over the place about blacksmiths playing with it.

 

Thermite's not hard to make, but it can be crazy stupid dangerous to play with, especially in quantity. 

 

Also gotta third suggestion, ever make iron gall ink? Could forge some quills and sell with small packets and or inkpots.

 

I think I remember the standard recipe going something like this, Crush a bunch of oak galls into vinegar, Or water with a little wine or vinegar (or beer, there was someone that famously used beer, yeah right, not wasting my good beer on.....dang it, got sidetracked!).

 

 

But anyways, oak galls should be, say about 10-20 percent of the whole mix. If ya can't get that, use oak bark, acorns, walnuts, etc. Add small amounts of iron. Let steep for a couple of weeks stirring every day. Somewhere in there add gum arabic as a binder. This could be off a bit, but hey, this is the internet, so you can search recipes, and you've got a lot of rust to play with so......have fun.

[VaughnT]

Would rust work like powdered metal in a can-weld?  

[Rashelle]

I made a stain out of finely powered rust once. Used it on hand crafted wood arrows. They came out a light pretty color.

[Steve Sells]

Would rust work like powdered metal in a can-weld?  

Most of the time we try to prevent oxygen from getting into the weld zone, that would place a lot of oxy in there and not sure thats a good idea, but let us know how it works out.

[ThomasPowers]

to get rust to convert back to iron you need large quantities of carbon monoxide present at elevated temps.

If you have a sealed can how is this going to happen?

 

Iron oxide in a linseed oil base was a traditional red paint and as it was pretty much the cheapest paint around it was used for large items---why barns were traditionally painted red!

[rthibeau]

"---why barns were traditionally painted red!" Thomas you are a never ending source of trivia...Thank You!!


not to mean the information is trivial, but meaning a constant source of data, or.....ummmm.....oh,nevermind..... :)

[Damion78]

Find someone into hobby rockets.