Hello all, I'm new, and perhaps this is old news, but I'll ask anyway. Has anyone every played with, talked about, or posted the beauty of Thermite? It is my favorite incendiary media, easy to make, ignite and insanely fun. If there is any interest, I will expound upon this subject, if not, I'll just continue to be quietly entertained by the "sparkler bombs" and "bursting dingleberry" chat. Oh, by the way, great site name. P.S. Thermite is legal!

thermite IS fun, but its not easy to ignite. unless u got some magnesium or another good way to light it.

Ive ignited Thermite with A) a sparkler B) Magnesium tape, and C) Potassium Permanganate and a couple of drops on glycerin

Please tell more, how to make it, fun shit to do with it...

Thermite is fucking retarded and lame.

Grow up.

As the moderator of a PYRO site, to refer to Thermite as retarded and lame, is indicative of an imature imbecile on a power trip. Block me if you wish, but I feel compelled to say that although you seem to have competency in this area, your demeanor indicates frustration and unfocussed anger, GET LAID! Your outlook will improve as well as your skin clearing up.

That being said, on to Thermite. Unlike the Military grade Thermate, which contains Sulfur, hard to come by in pure form, field expedient Thermite only contains two ingredients, ferric oxide (rust) and aluminum powder, the finer the better. I won't bore you with the laborious process of making rust with salt water and a battery, it would take a week to collect enough, so either grind the rust from rusty metal and collect or buy ferric oxide on ebay. For the aluminum powder, either purchase from ebay, a paint store, or knock your sister in the head and take her etch-a-sketch, it is full of aluminum powder. The mixture that I use is one part aluminum powder to three parts ferric oxide, by weight. This is important because of the mass differential between the two ingredients. Mix them together in a ziplock bag, and fill a small clay flower pot placed on that which needs melting. The mixture is very stable because it has such a high ignition temperature. As stated above, I have used a sparkler as a fuse, magnesium ribbon- purchased on ebay, and my favorite, a small pile of potassium permanganate activated by a couple of drops of glycerin. The potassium can be purchased on ebay, or a water purification store, the glycerin can be purchased at Walmart or the local health food store. The reaction between the potassium and glycerin takes a couple of seconds but has sufficient temperature to ignite the Thermite. As far as what to do with Thermite, use your imagination. Let's see, what could I do with a super-pyro mixture that burns north of 4000 degrees f, and melts through just about anything? Ghost, my sincere apologies if I have committed any grievous spelling or grammatical errors (Sarcasm, just another service that I provide)

LOL

'Thermate contains sulfur"

As you would have known had you bothered to read the rules and use the search engine, thermate is traditional black oxide thermite, with barium nitrate and binder. There's a tiny amount of sulfur, but all that does is make it easier to ignite. And claiming that sulfur is hard to come by in pure form? Wow, you're a fucking moron.

'The ratio is one to three because of MASS DIFFERENTIAL'

Jesus christ, do you just make up scientific sounding words and hope nobody calls you on it?

You will never find aluminium powder at a paint store. a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time ago you could get it at very specialty automotive custom paint places, for like ninety bucks for 10 grams.




Finally: Thermite does NOT melt through just about anything. In fact, it melts through very few things other then aluminium.

KMnO4 + Glycerine will work to ignite, yes, but it's very flaky and nowhere near as reliable as making a first-fire mix and using a lighter or fuse.




Thermite is retarded and lame. I've set off a 44-gallon drum full of it, which was kinda cool but a waste. All in all, leave thermite for welding, and go back to highschool.

Speaking of high school, aren't you up a bit late peckerwood. A chemist you may be, but the personality of a yak does not make you a likeable pile. I suppose you had better go hug your mom goodnight and beat off whatever pops up, maybe tomorrow will dawn on a more pleasant demeanor. As intelligent, although revolting, as you seem, I'm surprised you cannot get thermite to melt through anything other than aluminum, hmmm. Is there a chance that your "field experience" is limited to books and the web? Is it also possible that you hang out in a high school room so you can feel superior? Probably.

Is there a chance that you're a fucking retard who doesn't know what he's talking about?

The magic hate ball says "All signs point to yes".

I'm not here to be liked, smeghead. I'm here to teach little dipshits like you that there's more to life then grinding boxes of matches up, sticking styrofoam in gasoline, and trying to convince thermite to 'eat through t3h car's engine + t3e road d00d!'