Potential new material

MattA · Post by **MattA** » December 12th, 2012, 4:35 pm

I had an excited call from mentor today which opened with "What are you doing now?", we had already spoken this morning about an ad for 'fill' that sounded interesting. As it was closer to me I jumped in the car & headed over to have a look before they closed at 2pm. I finally found the workshop & met my contact, a really nice young bloke who gave me a better understanding of what the material actually is. Garnet sand that has been used in water jet cutting. All the info on the sand here http://www.reade.com/Products/Abrasives/garnet.html, being a used product it will also have any number of additives, a large part would be the steel that has been cut to oils & countless other things.

I can see a multitude of uses, from landscaping to display dressing for bonsai & stone, maybe even pottery work.
I also see a number of issues plus a multitude of questions & tests to run.

Instead of asking my questions etc I like to hear others thoughts ideas information concerns experience you name it.

Off to start my first test.

Matt

Jarrod · Post by **Jarrod** » December 12th, 2012, 8:24 pm

One word - contamination!

Too risky introducing used industrial cleaning products to your garden!

MattA · Post by **MattA** » December 13th, 2012, 7:10 am

Thanks for your input Jarrod.

I agree contamination is an issue but knowing what & what effect it may have allows materials to be reused safely & effectively. I currently have innumerable quantities of used industrial product around my garden, mainly recycled concrete but much more besides. At present several tonnes of the stuff is available & a continuous supply of the same every few months would be available so press on with tests I will.

First test results are in... no oil is to be found in my sample

The proportion of metal fragment to garnet appears to be about 1:2

The next results will take a bit longer.

Anyone else with a contribution?

Isitangus · Post by **Isitangus** » December 13th, 2012, 7:13 am

What would the downside of metal fragments be? (Unless of course they were heavy metals etc) are you looking at this to add to a potting medium?

MattA · Post by **MattA** » December 13th, 2012, 7:35 am

Isitangus, not planning on using it in potting mix as the particle size is too small. The metal component will be mainly steel with maybe a bit of stainless & other metals but most likely not contain any heavy metals.

The garnet sand is a dusky pink & as the metal rusts it would add varying tones of orangey browns which I think could look quite attractive. I am heading over again this morning to collect another sample so I can continue my tests, 3 running so far & many more to come.

Isitangus · Post by **Isitangus** » December 13th, 2012, 8:21 am

Sounds promising-especially the free part! I think if you control any potential contaminants u Could be onto a good thing

MattA · Post by **MattA** » December 13th, 2012, 8:53 am

Ok I have just been over to get more samples of the stuff & have another chat to find out more about what they do. There are no heavy metals involved, the only cutting is of steel, mild & stainless steel and a small amount of aluminium. The sand is fed thru the system only once so the metallic component will be minimal (guestimate of less than 5%).

So far its looking good, off to start another lot of tests & also send a sample to a mate who will run some tests at his lab for me. The boss could only think of one use, packing sand under paving, I can already see a number of uses and more keep springing to mind .

bki · Post by **bki** » December 14th, 2012, 7:03 pm

can it be mix with concrete in making slab?

MattA · Post by **MattA** » December 14th, 2012, 8:50 pm

bki wrote:can it be mix with concrete in making slab?

I dont see why not, at the very least it could be spread over wet concrete as a surface colourant.

AusBonsai