Cutting Magnesium ribbon

[bigmack]

Had to cut up about 300 pieces of Mg all exactly the same size for a reaction rate prac .
Got cunning .
Glued some scissors to a block of wood

Cutting Magnesium Ribbon.jpg

Close up.jpg

[Merilyn1]

That is awesomely clever! Well done! Now, you just have to make it adjustable and start producing them to sell. I'd happily pay for something like that.

[melsid]

Wow!!! What a great solution to the problem.

[bigmack]

That is awesomely clever! Well done! Now, you just have to make it adjustable and start producing them to sell. I'd happily pay for something like that.

Thanks Merilyn , yeah I was going to make it adjustable but run out of time .
I bet a Chinabot has already seen this and gone into production ....but to help them out , what are typical size range that you would use ?

melsid , recon it would have other uses too , I know I've had to cut straws , pipe cleaners bits of chalk etc .

[Merilyn1]

Usually 2 and 3 cm, sometimes 1cm. The other sizes aren't as common and usually for senior classes, eg 5cm and 10cm, so happy to do that manually.

[Smithy73]

Nice Work BigMack

[DavidPeterson]

Great idea!
I would have cleaned the oxidation off the surface of the magnesium first though......should be nice and shiny

[bigmack]

Great idea!
I would have cleaned the oxidation off the surface of the magnesium first though......should be nice and shiny

Normally I do run it through some sand paper to clean it up David , but in the particular prac where it was used , we were getting unpredictable results and we put it down to inconsistent sanding .....IE some pieces were thinner than others and it was upsetting the results so we just used it as is ( oxidized) and it was more consistent.

[LabTechBrooke]

I'd happily pay for something like that.

So would I!

[MrCooper]

Big mack, I have been frustrated enough in the past couple of years that I had started to design an automatic magnesium cutter.
The goal was that you'd just plug in what length you wanted and how many, and off it would go.
I got busy and forgot all about it!
Reckon it would be worth me spending some time on it these summer holidays?

Some screenshots of where I got up to:

Screenshot 2024-09-23 091749.png

Screenshot 2024-09-23 091726.png

[Labbie]

wow Mr Cooper great idea

[LabTechBrooke]

That looks amazing!

[bigmack]

I love that MrC
That is flash