I magnetized my tank!

[tobycat]

Had my scuba tank resting against a welding magnet while cutting on it. I now have metal dust clinging to all the cut edges. Has this ever happened to anyone else?, should I worry about it?. Will it make my Q taste better??

 

[kathrynn]

Bump.....trying to get you some answers....and EWWWW on the taste for the Q! 

Kat

 

[kc5tpy]

Hello Toby.  Drill pipe gets magnetized because of the constant turning in one direction.  When you try to weld on it the weld "puddle" will actually run in all sorts of directions.  WHACK it several times in different locations all round.  Believe it or not hitting it with a ball pein will cause the metal to lose magnetism.  Don't "tap" it but you don't have to hit it as hard as you can.  Just good solid whacks all round.  I also read your post on trying to blast off the galvanized coating.  Sometimes the zinc coating goes through a process of adding an electric charge along with the zinc.  It kind of gets into the pores of the metal.  I can't explain the process but suffice to say THAT STUFF IS TUFF!  I would do a big really HOT burn on that tank maybe even 2-3 times before I put meat on it and I'd think you should be safe.  Hope this helps my friend.  Let us know if we can offer any more help and don't forget to show us the Qview when complete.  Keep Smokin!

Danny

 

[kc5tpy]

Hi Toby.  Just also remembered.  If you start to weld on your tank and the weld starts doing silly stuff,  wrap your ground lead around the tank 4-5 times and then clamp it on.  That will help kill the magnet stuff.  Keep Smokin!

Danny

 

[themule69]

Hi Toby.  Just also remembered.  If you start to weld on your tank and the weld starts doing silly stuff,  wrap your ground lead around the tank 4-5 times and then clamp it on.  That will help kill the magnet stuff.  Keep Smokin!

Danny

Danny I don't have a long enough ground to keep some of my welds from doing silly stuff

Happy smoken.

David

 

[kc5tpy]

Hello David.  If you are trying to make xray quality welds and the material is magnetized it can be really tuff.  I know that is not the quality required for his build but I only wanted to point out to the OP that when welding magnetized metal  this was an option to be considered.  Keep Smokin!

Danny

edit unnecessary banter..... DaveOmak

 

[tobycat]

Thank you all for the wise advice and probably sparing me a lot of frustration , weld puddles running across the metal is something I don't need. I'm a quarter mile from THE MYSTERY SPOT here in Santa Cruz and that would have freaked me out. Like David said, my welds don't need any help doing weird things, I got that part handled! LOL. No problem smacking metal with my ballpeen hammer and I'll get that sorted. About the galvy, I am going to keep wet sanding the tank in a bucket until I have smooth clean steel then burn it out before I weld on the firebox. Since I have a lot of super fine wet/dry and a chromoly tank I could even have a polished cook chamber painted with VHT high temp clear.

 

[ribwizzard]

I would agree that doing a burn now would be the most logical step.  You dont want to trap the stuff under the paint, and you dont want to paint it after burning with out blasting or sanding again. Burn now and eliminate a step.

 

[dcarch]

The two ways to de-magnetize steel (Soft iron cannot be magnetized).

1. High heat - magnets lose their magnetic property under very high heat.

2. Alternate polarity (N/S) magnetic field of decreasing strength - You can buy de-magnetizer coil to demagnetize magnets. Once it was important to de-magnetize color TV screen to keep color TV color pure.

dcarch