Annealing salt gone amuck

Pete Wass

Pete Wass

Well-known member
went to use my salt bath annealing outfit this morning and found liquid on top of the salt. I have been leaving the dried salt in the pot without incident in the past. I am assuming the salt drew moisture to it from summers humid air. I am assuming at this point I should toss the salt I have and buy new, would this be a proper path? I'm concerned about the explosion warning from water in the salt.

Thanks for any input.

Pete
 
I know ZIP about salt bath annealing but,

Let's think this thru..... :)

At one atmosphere and not contained, ie "out in an open pot, not in a pressure vessel" water will boil off at 212F...... GONE..... like it can't hide out in a pocket somewheres and jump out or "explode" later. The water will be GONE from the salt by the time it gets up around 212 degrees....it cannot exist above 212F, except under pressure.

I have heated some lead in my day. Lead will also "explode" if you drip/drop sizable hunks of water into it at heat. The mechanism is simple, a gobbet of water gets under the surface of the HOT lead, turns to steam and HAS TO escape, so it blurps out the top of the lead pot splattering lead. But out here on the left coast, in the rain, in the real world where guys are doing hundreds/thousands of pounds (Schnitzer, Metro Metals, Brad's Baits) the guys don't worry about heat up..... it's just called "drying out the equipment". It's only after you're up to heat that you need avoid dropping liquid H2O into the batter.

That said, me being a Safety Geek (read "scared of everything") I might opt to run 'er up to heat out in the yard "just in case she burps" and watch out the front room winder until she's molten.

Let 'er cool, bring to your work station and have at 'er.
 
The same thing happened to me. I just let it heat up slowly and you can see the water start to boil off. Heat it up to fast, it will boil over and make a big mess. Definitely do it out side. Since then I let the pot cool completely and the salt puck pops right out, then store it in a ziploc bag.
 
Thanks

J.Coe said:
The same thing happened to me. I just let it heat up slowly and you can see the water start to boil off. Heat it up to fast, it will boil over and make a big mess. Definitely do it out side. Since then I let the pot cool completely and the salt puck pops right out, then store it in a ziploc bag.
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Ill do er!

Pete
 
Worked the very best

I expected an explosion but what seemed to happen was the water boiled and evaporated. Easy Peasy once someone who knows something gives good advice. Thanks again guys. Of note, a new container of salt is nine dollars. The freight is over eighteen dollars. No extra freight to buy more stuff. Freight is nearly prohibitive now a day. Freight went up because of high fuel prices but didn't come back down when fuel did, what's up with that? I met a guy recently who says he makes over 100K driving for WalMart. No wonder Amazon is such a force.

Pete
 
Freight costs now dictate do I really need it or not. Used to be there was a business in town where you could just run down and get it what you needed. Now almost everything has become a specialty item that has to be ordered. We have a local business that sells quite a few used machines and somewhat caters to ones machining needs. I say somewhat as I wanted to pick up a few simple items and they had to ordered and would take a couple of weeks. So off to Amazon I went, free freight and less expensive to boot and the only full supply house we had in town closed down several years back.
 
Pete Wass said:
I expected an explosion but what seemed to happen was the water boiled and evaporated. Easy Peasy once someone who knows something gives good advice. Thanks again guys. Of note, a new container of salt is nine dollars. The freight is over eighteen dollars. No extra freight to buy more stuff. Freight is nearly prohibitive now a day. Freight went up because of high fuel prices but didn't come back down when fuel did, what's up with that? I met a guy recently who says he makes over 100K driving for WalMart. No wonder Amazon is such a force.

Pete
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Glad it worked out for you Pete. As far as freight goes, I try to ask a friend or 2 if they need anything then we split the freight.
 
Great idea

J.Coe said:
Glad it worked out for you Pete. As far as freight goes, I try to ask a friend or 2 if they need anything then we split the freight.
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we have done that with the ridiculous Hazmat charge as well. Unbelievable what we have stood for with regard to shipping costs. We should all boycot everyone who uses expensive shippers. I guess it says something about the expendable income most folks weem to have, eh?

Pete
 
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