Foo - Thermite

For those of you who have made this stuff, what did you use to heat up the Aluminum and Iron Oxide?
A good friend of mine wants to carry out this reaction, and is thinking about using magnesium strips to generate the heat. But I cant remember what the school used, I think it had something to do with sulfuric acid and/or glucose

My chemistry teacher ( the cool one ) used the magnesium strips and it worked ok.

Uh oh...we all knew this day would come, but we hoped it wouldn't be for a while. Phantomcow is playing with explosives...

You can just use a butane lighter.
Here's a cool video.
http://www.lemonzoo.com/show.php?c=14819

Thermite is not really an explosive. Unless you attatch it to a tanker.
When I was a kid, I collected the iron oxide from a local rusty bridge. I had some 1/8 " Aluminum, that I filed to get that and I used the mag ribbon. But it did not work. I couldn't get the ribon to light the mixture. I think that you want to get the metals to be as fine as possible. I understand that mag powder is available. Those are the componants.

What you do is, get a bunch of al+feo2 (my friends and I used to refer to thermite as alfredo, get it? haw haw), set it off inside a building. Wait for the firefighters to unknowingly show up and try to put it out and WHAMO, wipe out half a city block and KILL A WHOLE BUNCH OF PEOPLE.

Seriously, wtf are you people thinking? Don't play with fire and certainly don't play with really really hot fire.

slvoid, our posts crossed. That thermite, must have powdered magnesium in it. Cool video.

Well several tons of material burning hot enough to dissociate water'll do it...

Wow, I seriously think PCow is crazy. I bet his next question in Foo will be "Where can I find plans on the internet to build a nuclear warhead?" or something along those lines.

What you do is, get a bunch of al+feo2 (my friends and I used to refer to thermite as alfredo, get it? haw haw), set it off inside a building. Wait for the firefighters to unknowingly show up and try to put it out and WHAMO, wipe out half a city block and KILL A WHOLE BUNCH OF PEOPLE.Not to mention the thermite reaction is one of the few that's hot enough to melt solid steel and leave it in a molten puddle in the basement for weeks afterwards...

Well working at a machine shop, I have access to all of the aluminum powder my heart could desire. Or I can just look in my basement...
I think the magnesium strip burning should do it. I'm sure I can find some magnesium sitting around

It wasn't my idea!!

Thermite
It's TERMITE.....that's T-E-R-M-I-T-E. There is no "H". OK?

Wow, I seriously think PCow is crazy. I bet his next question in Foo will be "Where can I find plans on the internet to build a nuclear warhead?" or something along those lines.

All he needs to do is get enough fissionable material together into a big clump. The hard part is getting it to critical mass without enough fissionable material. I suggest he stick to the type of critical mass with bicycles...