Meltonium - 1-1-2017 at 16:06
Hello, just asking for advice pertaining to the two, 30g magnesium firestarter bars and how to get them into powder/shavings easily. I was using a
knife to make shavings but that was exhausting so I switched to my dremmel to grind away the bar into powder, but that was taking forever! I decided
to make a special knife to make shavings and it works well, but I think it would still take over an hour to get at least 1 gram of shavings.
What are your experiences with this problem?
Note: I have magnesium ribbon, but I am running out and these bars were fairly cheap on Amazon.
Deathunter88 - 1-1-2017 at 19:24
You can use a drill to drill holes into the magnesium block to produce coarse turnings.
Sulaiman - 1-1-2017 at 19:34
As eBay.uk has 50g magnesium turnings for £3.5, 200g for £8 (inc. p&p) I would not bother with the effort 
Mg is not that expensive as reagents go.
Bert - 2-1-2017 at 18:49
Before there was spherical/spheroidal "blown" Mg powders, "cut" Mg powder for pyrotechnic use was sometimes made by running bars of Mg against steel
wire wheels similar to those now used by welders and others for stripping paint from steel and cleaning welds.
Mg powder is a pain to make mechanically by drilling/sawing, etc.
Long ago I got a chunk of Mg plate from a scrap yard and wore out several SawzAll blades to get a very coarse saw chip Mg powder. Would not do this
again, far too much work and cost for a little material.
If you are in USA, Skylighter can sell (and ship) a mixed Mg powder that contains scrap material from industrial Mg machining proceses.
http://www.skylighter.com/mall/chemicals.asp?Sort=M
[Edited on 3-1-2017 by Bert]