"Commonly" found items that contain magnesium (metal)?

[challenger]

I need some magnesium to kick off some thermite. I ordered some ribbon but it's going to take longer than I'd like to wait. Is there some item that I could harvest some ignitable size magnesium from?
Thanks

 

[NRDock]

Maybe chainsaw engine casing? High end, like Husky or Stihl pro level.

 

[jaguar36]

Go to an outdoor store like Cabela's. Most of them have Mag firestarters.

 

[memphisjed]

Amazon has ribbon, one day delivery.

 

[DrHook]

VW engine cases. Some water heater anode rods are also mag.

 

[challenger]

Amazon has ribbon, one day delivery.

This is where I ordered the mag strip from. Several days out. Prime ain't what it used to be.

 

[challenger]

VW engine cases. Some water heater anode rods are also mag.

Not exactly commonly found right? Not being a wise guy BTW.
I have seen someone else post about magnesium water heater anode which I find interesting because I thought water reacts with magnesium?

 

[jaguar36]

This is where I ordered the mag strip from. Several days out. Prime ain't what it used to be.

Around here at least Prime is amazing these days. I ordered a USB drive last night and it was here before I woke up this morning.

Not exactly commonly found right? Not being a wise guy BTW.
I have seen someone else post about magnesium water heater anode which I find interesting because I thought water reacts with magnesium?

That's the point of the anode rod. You want the water to react with the replaceable rod rather than with the tank itself.

 

[memphisjed]

McMaster-Carr

McMaster-Carr is the complete source for your plant with over 595,000 products. 98% of products ordered ship from stock and deliver same or next day.

www.mcmaster.com

Or concrete floats...

 

[DrHook]

Not exactly commonly found right? Not being a wise guy BTW.
I have seen someone else post about magnesium water heater anode which I find interesting because I thought water reacts with magnesium?

I realize one does not "find" VW cases laying around, but I figured if you did not know they were mag, you MIGHT know of one laying around. Here, we take the anodes out when the water heater is new, because there is so much manganese and iron in the water that the hot will smell like sewer if you leave the anode in. Older race car motor plates and brake calipers were also "commonly" magnesium, but I didn't figure you would have any of those laying around....

 

[kenton]

Fresh titanium chips will burn as well.
If you can come into some stringy lathe chips you might be set.

 

[Bill D]

flash bulbs

 

[L Vanice]

Circa 1948-50, the first thing I did with my Gilbert chemistry sets was light the powdered magnesium. Second choice was the sulfur. After that, it got boring.

In the 1950's, I had a collection of antique cameras and accessories. That included some neat old flash powder (magnesium powder) devices, but I never lit one of those because they were rare antiques. I also had some number 31 flash bulbs that had a long duration flash for use with 4 x 5 Speed Graphic focal plane shutters and similar cameras. They had a lot of metal in their oversize glass bulbs, but I don't know if it was magnesium.

Larry

 

[MrWhoopee]

Not exactly commonly found right? Not being a wise guy BTW.
I have seen someone else post about magnesium water heater anode which I find interesting because I thought water reacts with magnesium?

I believe you are confusing magnesium with sodium or lithium, both of which react violently with water.

 

[MrWhoopee]

VW engine cases.

Important to clarify that this is air-cooled VW engine cases. Takes some doing to get them burning. The ranger usually arrives shortly thereafter.

 

[M.B. Naegle]

If you have some scrap machines built during WW2, many manufacturors switched normally aluminum parts to magnesium so they could allocate the aluminum to aircraft manufacturing. We've seen a few hydraulic "clicker" press's with mag heads on them for that reason.

Off topic, but we have an aluminum glue pot in one of our machines that were briefly made of iron during the war. We have one in a display case that's been cleaned up and you can see where they cast it using a dirty aluminum part for the pattern with streaks of dry glue permanently cast into the side. Best we can figure is the aluminum pattern was tied up at the aluminum foundry so they made due.

 

[Milland]

Older race car motor plates and brake calipers were also "commonly" magnesium, but I didn't figure you would have any of those laying around....

I'd be a little shocked (won't be the first time) if Mg was commonly used on racing car calipers. It's low stiffness modulus would have made consistent clamping difficult, the "C" would have opened up with every touch of the brake pedal.

Edit: shoulda checked first, yeah, they're out there, both old and new production.

 

[challenger]

I got a small piece of magnesium as well as a few sparklers and my powders wouldn't ignite. I then ground up some blobs of rust from a piece of sheet steel in the yard and mixed in again with no ignition. Time to start over I suppose.

 

[M.B. Naegle]

You gotta hum the Macgyver theme while you do it!

 

[challenger]

You gotta hum the Macgyver theme while you do it!

True. I get a hair for an experiment and can't let it go.