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When copper burns it gives off a green flame. That is what they use in those “Duraburn” logs you buy in the grocery stores that advertize a decorative flame. The copper pipe will not completely burn up unless you burn it many many times. It’s just minute specs burning off that give off the color.
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When copper burns it gives off a green flame. That is what they use in those "Duraburn" logs you buy in the grocery stores that advertize a decorative flame. The copper pipe will not completely burn up unless you burn it many many times. It's just minute specs burning off that give off the color.
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yep ... I --think--- copper compounds provide the green in fireworks ... magnesium white, etc. it probably wasn't a whole lot of green light, but camping at night is a pretty low-level lighting condition. interesting (if odd) idea for a campfire ... but now i remember when i was a kid at camp we tossed pennies into the fire for the same reason. Incidentally copper doesn't melt until something like 2000 degrees ... a campfire is well below that, you'd have to force it to burn faster before you open your blacksmithy ... i think i heard that at a certain flash point the aluminum (or was it steel? iron burns well & is used in July 4 sparklers) in a battleship will burn from incendiary attack ... enough rambling ...
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Aluminum is the one that will burn. I don't know that the battleships used much of this material. Newer ships (70's) started using more aluminum in superstructures. The Stark incident (Iraqi F-1 Mirage landed two exocet missles into the USS Stark in May '87 during the Iran-Iraq war) was a good example of aluminum becoming a fuel. Magnesium burns quite well and is nearly impossible to extinguish. Aircraft landing gear are made of this material. Dumped overboard during fires at sea.
*The fires are all pretty, but a few words of caution:An old welding technique used the THERMITE reaction: magnesium and aluminum powders. Hot enough to burn through or melt steel. And bright enough to burn your retinas. And finely divided metals can burn explosively, so be careful how you play.Finally, those pretty colors are actually metal oxide vapors burning. At least some of them are toxic. Have fun, but remember what Mom told you about playing with matches!Steve
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Thermite...I remember seeing a section of train track welded with that. They called it CadWeld.
It was fine aluminum powder mixed with iron oxide (rust) to produce aluminum oxide gas which evaporated and only pure iron was left.
It had to be lit with a strip of magnesium which had to be lit with a blow torch. I think the temperature was 6000 degrees F.
My dad is a blacksmith, does alot of custom iron work. He knows a guy that burned up his forge trying to weld something with Thermite. It was an experiment gone bad.
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Speaking of burned retinas!! Caution to those of you who wear contacts. Proximity to arc welding can cause contact lenses to fuse with the cornea. One case I read of a few years back the guy went home that night, tried to take out his contacts and pulled the cornea away with the lens. BUMMER! Ralph
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Harvard Yard is surrounded by wrought iron fence and brick walls like a little fort. An MIT prank some years ago involved placing thermite charges on all the gates one night to weld them shut. Quite effective I heard.
We actually had a thermite demonstration in the inorganic chem class I took several years ago. Very impressive. I don't think the next class was very pleased with the lecture hall we left them dense with smoke.
*Aside from the errors committed on the Stark (such as turning off the missle defense Aegis so it would stop trying to shoot down friendly helicopters) was it EVER explained what the heck happened, why the missile(s) (I thought it was one) were fired? This was way back when Iraq was our "friend" because they were fighting the Iranians ... though we were helping the Iranians too ... strange world.If I recall correctly, the British lost a ship altogether -- the Sheffield? -- to an Exocet in the Falklands fracas. That dang France.
*...A couple of tidbits for your information...The USS Stark (FFG 31) was only hit by one Excocet missile. It hit just behind and below the bridge, just about water level. What made this hit so bad was the fact that it hit two berthing (sleeping) compartments, late at night. This is when most of the crew was asleep. In the first photo (the one below) you can see the Stark limping home under her own power. It was a very dismall day for the ships escorting her. James DuHamel
*Here's a little more info...This is a picture of my old ship, the USS Clark (FFG-11). In the photo, you can see the #1 and #2 (in red). Just below the #1 is where the excocet missile hit the Stark.The #2 indicates the location of the most deadly aspect of the AEGIS system. This photo does not have the Phalanx system mounted, but it would be mounted right here. What made this weapon so deadly was how it operated. It looked like R2-D2 from Star Wars, and it fired 1,000 rounds per minute. It picked up on anything that the AEGIS radar system designated as hostile, and started firing. It would blow the missile, plane, torpedo, or whatever to bits. It then picked the largest component of the debris, and fired upon it also. Anything that was still making forward progress toward the ship was fired upon. Woe be unto the pilot that ejected from an enemy plane. Before his chute hit the water, he would become the largest object still making forward progress (sheer momentum from ejecting from a moving jet). There would not be enough of him left to even identify. This is the system that was causing so many malfunctions on the Stark when the weapons officer decided to shut the AEGIS down. If this sytem had been armed, the Excocet missile would never have had a chance of striking the ship. BTW... AEGIS is also the designation for a type of missile used in the military. Just thought this might be interesting to some of you.James DuHamel
*While in the Gulf I used to disable tanks with thermite. Set the can on the back and pull the pin. A minute later it would melt it way thur the engine and fall to the ground.
*All while they were shooting at you, right bill?Be a drag if one of those went off in your pocket.
*Thermite problem? Call therminix. ;)
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While camping out this past weekend we noticed some campers near us had a beautiful bright green fire, they overheard us talking about their fire and one of them brought us a foot long piece of 1 inch copper tubing with holes bored in it all around. He told us to throw it in the fire, we did so and the fire turned bright green. We thought maybe the tubing itself was being burned and causing the glow but the pipe was still in the ashes next morning so the pipe had to be filled with something to cause the glow. Do any of you chemists out there know what they could have used?