Gfo + aluminum powder = thermite?

[cedric von puffington]

Ok I fell really far down the YouTube rabbit hole and went from watching reef videos to watching people melt stuff with thermite. I then got to thinking gfo is an iron oxide and iron oxide is mixed with aluminum powder to make thermite, so hmm mix the 2 and see what happens. Unfortunately my wife would be upset with me if I tried this as I shouldn’t play with things that burn since the super soaker flame thrower incident that resulted in me not needing to mow the front yard for a long while. Like I said I was just really bored and the idea popped into my head. So has anybody on here tried this to see if it works?

 

[CubsFan]

When you’re von puffington, you’re likely to find all sorts of crazy stuff on YouTube.;)

 

[Daddy-o]

So today I was thinking of mixing GFO and PhosGuard in the reactor. Probably good I read this first??

 

[ichthyogeek]

Y'know...if you need straight magnesium to start the ignition process, it might be, idk, dangerous or something to do this. I'm fairly certain when my high school chemistry teacher demonstrated this there were burn marks on the concrete. This was after setting up everything and maintaining safety protocols. We still felt the heat 15' away.

Thermite's not cool, it's hot. It's not something to try indoors, no matter the quantity of thermite. And you'd want at least a bucket of water (better would be a fire extinguisher or dry ice...) on hand to handle the extreme temperatures. ANd also a nice lawyer to handle all the damage lawsuits....

Thankfully, you need a very hot ignition source to jump start the process.

 

[TvanB1]

I’ve made thermite a few times back in high school with my friends. We’d use fuses from fireworks to set it off. It will melt through basically anything you put under it. As mentioned above be very careful.
Not sure if GFO is exactly what you need but aluminum powder is far more expensive than red iron oxide powder. If you really want to make some just go straight for the powder IMO.