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10-20-2009, 12:50 PM
|  | Moderator | | Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Belleville, Illinois
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We were going through old boxes of my parent's stuff and came across this. It's a 0.004" thick strip of metal about 10' long with holes punched into it. I think it's silver. I can think of two possibilities:
Pop was into black and white photography which involves silver compounds, but not solid metal as far as I know.
Mom made jewelry years ago, but if it was to be melted into jewelry I would think a bar would serve that purpose better. DSCN3613a.JPG
Anybody have any ideas?
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10-20-2009, 01:25 PM
|  | Can't Get Enough | | Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: S. CA
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How soft is it? If you scratch it, is the metal underneath bright?
I actually looks like the inside of a NiCad battery....they take a stripe like that, coat it with a nickel substance, coil it up...shove it in the battery can...then fill with the cadnium electorlyte....
If it is that metal, it will be pretty stiff....if it's real silver, it will melt pretty easy....hit it with a torch...
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10-20-2009, 01:46 PM
| | Moderator | | Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Belleville, Illinois
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Yeah, I scraped it with my pocketknife and it's shiny under the oxide. Seems pretty dense, too - somewhere between steel and lead. It's more brittle than I would expect silver to be. If I fold it and work it back and forth a few times it breaks. I'll try melting a little piece of it, or maybe I'll take it to a jeweler to see if he can identify it. It's not likely to be a silver battery component since it's probably been in the box for over forty years.
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10-20-2009, 02:09 PM
| | Way Outta Control | | Join Date: Sep 1999 Location: The Palouse
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If it's silver, it could have been cut into anode strips and used in electroplating...
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10-20-2009, 03:08 PM
| | Moderator | | Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Belleville, Illinois
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Well, it's not silver. I used a little butane torch to heat it to a cherry red and it didn't melt. Also it's not magnetic at all.
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10-20-2009, 03:47 PM
| | Way Outta Control | | Join Date: Sep 1999 Location: The Palouse
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If it's not lead based, nor silver (since it doesn't melt) then I can think of only two uses: - Gas tank strapping (or the like), or
- Plumbing strapping.
is the coating any type of galvanization?
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10-20-2009, 04:53 PM
| | Moderator | | Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Belleville, Illinois
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It can't be structural for any use like that - it fatigues quickly and is only .004" thick. And not being ferrous it would have to be for some special, high-tech application. Stuff for common use would be steel. My dad scrounged a lot of strange stuff, but this is kind of exotic. The coating seems to be oxidation. At the center of the roll the metal is still shiny away from the edges.
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10-20-2009, 05:14 PM
| | Old Hand | | Join Date: Dec 1999 Location: Ohio
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Backing for patching holes in drywall/concrete/etc?
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10-20-2009, 06:05 PM
| | Moderator | | Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Belleville, Illinois
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Probably not - that would be galvanized steel most likely.
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10-21-2009, 09:22 AM
|  | Addict | | Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: So.West Indiana
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Probably not, since it's non-magnetic, but looks like the stuff they use to reinforce timber joints for Joists...
Also looks like the lead/antimony plates they use in batteries, but that would have melted like lead.
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