Aluminum

Aluminum is a very common metal, and has a light dull grey color. It is fairly easy to melt and cast, and scrap is easily available in many forms.

Atomic name is Al, number is 13, weight is 26.981, and it sits in the "poor metal" section of the periodic table. Most common Isotope is Aluminum-27 with 14 neutrons, but traces of Aluminum-26 have been found and are very slightly radioactive.

Aluminum is one of my favorite metals, as it doesn't easily corrode due to a protective oxide layer which forms quite fast, but doesn't flake off like rust on Iron, keeping the Aluminum under the surface safe from corrosion. It's melting point is only 1220 F, which can easily be made by a wood or charcoal fire if you keep good airflow.

Aluminum is generally very common construction material, being fairly cheap, far lighter than steel, but still good strength. It's used in many airplanes or helicopters for these traits. It is also an extremely good electrical conductor, 2/3rds as good as copper, but 1/3rd as heavy, making one of it's most common uses electrical power lines.

Almost all structural Aluminum is alloyed with small amounts of most commonly Copper and Zinc, to make it less prone to cracking. The most common alloy is known as "6061" Aluminum, and can have up to 1% of Silicon, Iron, Copper, Manganese, Magnesium, Chromium, Zinc, and Titanium, but most times contains less than 5% other metals.

Here are my samples

Sample 1: These are all items I cast myself, from right to left: A water-cast blob, made by pouring liquid metal in water, a "medallion", made just for the fun of it, and the result of pouring aluminum into a hole in loose soil. The large lump is what I had left over, so I poured it all into a cooking pan.

Sample 2: This is a small heat sink from something electronic. Aluminum conducts heat very well, similar to electricity, so by putting aluminum vanes on a hot object, the heat is carried out the vanes and dissipated into the air. Used quite commonly in computers, because the processor chips get hot.

Sample 3: This is an aluminum plate, I don't know what it was for, but my dad got a pile of them as scrap from a former job (Same job as the copper slab)
Sample 4: One of the easiest samples, Aluminum foil (Sometimes called Tin foil, but it's been made out of aluminum for quite some time now)

Sample 5: Soda can, another easy one to get, however it doesn't really show what the surface of aluminum looks like, because there's a label on the outside and a thin plastic coating on the inside.

This is another sample of Aluminum, a good example of structural aluminum, a 30 foot antenna tower my dad owns. My dad has lots of interesting stuff, doesn't he?

All in all, Aluminum is quite a useful metal, and not hard to get a sample of. I have many more samples than this, some are quite large though, so I left them out.

Thanks again for reading!

~Ben

Coming soon: Lead, Thorium, Radium.

Some News

I just ordered 122 small glass vials to store my samples in, I won't be able to post gas elements until they get here, as I cannot store them. Because I ordered so many vials, they where relatively cheap per piece, but quite the price for the whole batch, and if anybody needs just one or two, I might consider resale.

I will also be putting a slideshow of a few of my favorite samples on Youtube soon, probably by tomorrow, just to show what's coming. Link will be posted

Also I've put a tab to the right that is my current list of interesting samples I'd like to purchase. Unfortunately, I can afford practically none of them as of now, but most are not necessary samples, merely interesting uses or Isotopes. If you really want to see me get them, you can donate through paypal at the bottom of the list, there is no minimum donation, and everything goes towards this blog.

All the best,

~Ben