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Galvanized fire ring


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Was at the mega-farm-store yesterday and they had a large stack of nice looking fire rings at great pricing--all hot dip galvanized quite heavily.

I've been pondering the notion of a bunch of 8 year olds crowed up close with hot dogs and marshmallows on their skewers while they snorked up that nice yellow-green zinc smoke of the first big fire.

But....at the same time I was wondering just how much risk there really might be from such a thing.  In reality, coals aren't all that hot without a good forced draft and the typical camp fire "hot spot" wouldn't be in direct contact with the galvanizing. Curious if you folks would consider a hot-dipped fire ring to be of little risk or a nightmare of a risk...or somewhere in between.

I suspect the few people here who have experienced the horrors of zinc poisoning would definitely have adverse opinions of the risk.

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Interesting question. The key factor would have to be, does the fire get the ring hot enough to vaporize the galvy? The boiling point of zinc is about 1665°F, and while it's certainly possible for the center of a roaring campfire to get that hot, I'm not sure if the ring would get to that temperature.

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  • 1 month later...

Found a couple of things around the thermal properties of zinc.

 

https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6105&context=masters_theses

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Evaporation rates of liquid zinc were determined experimentally within the temperature range of 450° C to 575° C

 

http://theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/ZincSafety.html

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When zinc is raised to a high temperature (at or above its boiling point around 900C), it burns and forms zinc oxide smoke. Like any kind of smoke, zinc oxide will irritate the lungs, leading to difficulty breathing: This is not a dangerous situation and it clears up immediately when you move away from the source of the fumes. People exposed to high concentrations of zinc oxide over a prolonged period of time can also develop a condition known as the "zinc chills", "metal fume fever", "brass-founders ague", or a number of other colorful terms. This involves fever, tremors, and other unpleasant symptoms.

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On the basis of these facts, I am absolutely convinced, as are a number of expert chemists, metallurgists, and foundry men I've consulted, that melting pure zinc or alloys containing zinc (but not any lead) that melt at or below about 450C, represents no health hazard from inhalation of zinc fumes. Yes, you can definitely burn yourself really badly if you spill it, but that is the extent of what you have to worry about.

 

https://www.doctorfire.com/flametmp.html

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  1. Slightly above the base of the fire begins the continuous flame region. Here the temperatures are constant and are slightly below 900°C.
  2. Above the solid flame region is the intermittent flame region. Here the temperatures are continuously dropping as one moves up the plume. The visible flame tips correspond to a temperature of about 320°C.
  3. Finally, beyond the flame tips is the thermal plume region, where no more flames are visible and temperature continually drop with height.
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In studying fires in a warehouse storage rack geometry, Ingason [9] found an average solid-flame temperature of 870°C. At the visible flame tips, the average temperature was 450°C, but the range was large, covering 300~600°C.

 

Based on the above, i'd surmise an average open fire,  even at the edges, has the potential to reach the zinc evaporation point, thus making it dangerous (although not fatal).

I've read the first sentence on the Dunning-Kruger wikipedia page, so obviously i'm an expert.

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14 hours ago, JHCC said:

I only read one letter of one word, so my understanding is even greater than yours. 

:D Love it!

Workmate of mine likes really strong tea at smoko time. I like it less strong. He calls my tea 'homeopathic tea' - two parts per million.

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We have friends at church that were originally from Cornwall, once we were discussing tea; my typical tipple not involving ethanol, and finally she said "you drink builders tea!"---too strong, too sweet and too much milk.  Works for me...though now I have to use splenda to sweeten it... 

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