I have access to literally tons of ground up Granite as fine as talcum powder. It would seem a shame to find that it's no good as a welding flux. I know the obvious way to test if its OK but I wonder what others reckon.

Strine:

Answer: I don't know.

HOWEVER... you will know fairly quickly by trying it. I'm not a rock scientist (just COULDN'T resist), but as I recall, granite is a family of material. A quick research on the web would tell you what's typically in it. For instance, here is one link with a breakdown of likely elements:

http://www.championtrees.org/topsoil/australia.htm

From the table in this article, it looks like SiO2 is the most prominent ingredient, which you would expect from a quartz family of rocks.

Sooo.... if the other elements don't hinder welding (and I don't see why they would), it seems to me that you would be using the equivalent of sand (with other gunk, though) ... which is a valid flux.

Put some on a piece of iron. Put it in the forge and bring it carefully to welding heat. With sunglasses or (better) #4 or #5 welding glasses, watch the surface. If the granite dust melts and coats the iron slightly before you reach midrange welding heat, you probably have a flux worth trying.

Soooo???? What happened? Did you try it out? Did you find out anything else??? Now you got ME curious!

Please be careful handling that powdered stone. If you breathe the dust you are making youself a candidate for Silicosis which is a progressive and fatal disease. When you get it from coal dust it is called Black Lung Disease, from stone dust containing Silicone, it is Silicosis, results are the same. Wear a Respirator when using or working around this stuff. PLEASE!

Woody

Ed, I'll give it a go tomorrow and let you know. Don't lose any sleep over it

And yes Woody I have all the good oil on silicosis and rock dust. This dust is everywhere in the quarries I work in and they're forever telling us of the dangers.

Well, doggone, Strine... there you went and let me babble on about rockology and you probably forgot more than I'll ever know about granite. :mrgreen:

You can't take all stone for granite, sometimes its schist.



Post read and approved by the Moderator.

Scuse me Jim while I recompose myself ...(insert think music here).... Nup I just can't think of a comeback. And Ed, rocks is rocks to me. Alls I know is that when you drill a hole into them they make a lot of dust, and noise which makes the place downright uncomfortable. I just tell 'em where to put the hole.

Ground up granite dust does not possess magical properties in relation to fire welding. In fact the trial test today suggested you'ld do just as well without flux at all. Looks like I'll have to find another use for the stuff!

Strine: You probably weren't holding your tongue JUST right, and mixed up the order of the hop, skip, hop, hop happy-forge dance steps just as you took it out of the fire.