[TheForge] Speaking of scrap...

[Saint Phlip]

My roommate, Rob, recently retired from the Navy, wanted to pass the
following warning along, since so many of us mess with scrap.

We're all, I hope by now, familiar with the dangers of zinc, which, over
time, will kill you. Unfortunately, there's another material which is far
more dangerous, as in if heated, it will give off gases which will make you
dead, as in RIGHT NOW. And, it's not only becoming more and more common as a
plating material for steel fasteners, but it also looks very like other,
safer materials like brass and bronze.

The material I'm referring to is Cadmium. While reasonably safe in cool
applications (it doesn't start to gas off until 90 degrees F), it's such a
dangerous atmospheric contaminant that the US Navy doesn't allow it aboard
their submarines.

In color, it's rather golden, with an inner reflection of blue, green, or
purple. After some mild heating, the color is, as I said, very like brass or
bronze. It's being used more and more these days, because it's even cheaper
than zinc.

Please, if you use scrap for forging, as I do, and as most smiths do at some
point or another, make sure you know what you have. After all, dropping dead
means you'll NEVER finish that dream project ;-)

-- 
Saint Phlip

Don't like getting old? Beats the Hel out of the alternative.

The purpose of life is not to arrive at the grave, a beautiful corpse,
pretty and well-preserved, but to slide in sideways, thoroughly used up,
totally worn out, proclaiming, "Wow! What a ride!"