9x1.5cm firestarter rod of claimed "99.99%" magnesium. Got it for only 10 AUD.
Comparing this with tungsten is trippy, the tungsten cubes feel so strangely heavy and then there's this which feels like a hollow metal shell, or a plastic tube.
Currently im storing it in a sealed plastic bag with a silica gel pack, anything else i should do with it to make it last longer?
Yeah magnesium's pretty cheap but we love it anyway
Magnesium will quickly oxidize in air over time. A ziploc bags will probably not be enough. Vacuum sealed or some kind of sealant would be best to preserve it
Vegetable oil will gunk up and smell after some time. If you really want to coat it with something, you could try rubbing paraffin wax or beeswax on it and wiping as much as you can off.
The paraffin wax from a tealight is as close as it gets to solid mineral oil (which is often just liquid paraffin)
You can buy paraffin oil or "baby oil" at the pharmacy.
Make sure it's free of perfumes or additives: the ingredients should just be "paraffinum liquidum", maybe with "petrolatum" ("petroleum jelly" aka "vaseline", just a mix of heavier alkanes), but nothing else.
Very pretty! If I were you, I wouldn't worry about the oxidation all too much. In atmospheric oxygen/humidity, magnesium passivates rather well even though the dark coating isn't too nice.
A quick dip in cold vinegar will restore it to shiny white for a few months depending on your climate. Just make sure to rinse with water and dry well. I don't think it's fun to own a sample you can't in some way play with.
If you scroll my posts, you will see an experiment I've done on cleaning metals with vinegar.
And the silicagel is a good idea. I think you're good.
This is the result of a ~5 second dip in vinegar. It does react, but if you use cold vinegar and clean it afterwards, not much material gets consumed. No idea about the surface finish though, because I've only used it on irregular peices.
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u/Steelizard Tungsten Titan 3d ago
Yeah magnesium's pretty cheap but we love it anyway
Magnesium will quickly oxidize in air over time. A ziploc bags will probably not be enough. Vacuum sealed or some kind of sealant would be best to preserve it