Stainless Steel mesh, Oxide discussion.

[kwalka]

We are all essentially "hoping" what we are inhaling is less harmful than what we were. I help noobs every single day get setup w mesh gennys. Nothing like the exposure a blog gets. Never the less, I am still exposing peeps to what they see as an experienced vaper showing them "the way".
Soon enough there will be proper testing done on all of this and we will know for sure what the deal is.


I think BJ43 put it best. He just forgot the part about walking 2 miles up hill (in both directions) in the snow to school everyday, with short pants on.

 

[Dieseler]

Most folks use teflon pans. If your scared of the mesh wicks read up on teflon its already in your body.

 

[BJ43]

We are all essentially "hoping" what we are inhaling is less harmful than what we were. I help noobs every single day get setup w mesh gennys. Nothing like the exposure a blog gets. Never the less, I am still exposing peeps to what they see as an experienced vaper showing them "the way".
Soon enough there will be proper testing done on all of this and we will know for sure what the deal is.


I think BJ43 put it best. He just forgot the part about walking 2 miles up hill (in both directions) in the snow to school everyday, with short pants on.

How did you know I got my first pair of long store bought pants at age 12???? No snow, grew up in the tropics, lots of mud.

 

[JC Okie]

subscribed.

 

[Projectguy]

The Kanthal wires are extremely oxidation resistant even at temperatures near their melting point of 1500 C. These wires are composed of mostly iron, with some chromium (approx. 20%) and aluminum (approx. 5-6%). As this wire is heated up above 1000 C (1830 F), it becomes covered with the thermodynamically most stable oxide. Since aluminum oxide Al2O3 is more thermodynamically stable that either chromium oxide or iron oxide, a layer of aluminum oxide forms on the surface of this wire. Aluminum oxide provides unique oxidation resistance to alloys at high temperatures. The oxide layer on Nichrome alloys indeed consists mainly of chromium dioxide. This layer evaporates more easily than the tighter oxide layer on the Kanthal alloys.

Class Idiot here: Great thread and great information if I can ever process it all properly.

Question: I believe I read earlier in this thread is that Al is a toxin we wanted to stay away from and yet I get from this post is that Al 203 is extremely stable and that at our temperatures we are good, correct? All of the foregoing relating of course to Kanthal wire.

 

[Bmays]

View attachment 177037 View attachment 177038

Okay, This thread has got the best of me. I went ahead and tore apart my current (good working mind you) torched mesh/coil setup and installed a completely unoxidized mesh/coil.

I used the drill bet method and yes, there were hot-spots. I'm not sure you could achieve this without any hotspots at all but after these were worked through by pulseing the switch on off on off on for about a minute I could see it was going to work.

I have not added juice yet but I am expecting to vape everything I have touched up till this point today

 

[Whoopin]

I would put juice on the mesh and light the juice off just to get rid of any gunk or stuff on it, and I make sure I wash my hands thoroughly before any prep/coiling/cleaning, just to make sure there isn't any germs and bacteria.

I do hope this helps

 

[d9mel]

Following this concept a hot spot would generate enough heat to create Cr(VI) and cause direct exposure.

I'm still using mesh the way I always have

 

[kwalka]

I was dry burning a gunked up coil/wick this morning and the wick turned bright red just like when torching it. I also just torched a long pc of mesh to roll a U and there was no debris at all. There never is when I torch before rolling.

 

[Bmays]

Following this concept a hot spot would generate enough heat to create Cr(VI) and cause direct exposure.

I'm still using mesh the way I always have

I see where you are coming from as I thought the same thing. However only the actual coil is getting that hot. My new un-oxidized mesh never got anywhere close to turning red.

Now, like kwalka was saying, previously when doing a dry burn to "clean" the wick/coil everything turned red. I seen that as a good thing. Maybe it still is. We may all be freaking over nothing at all.

The un-oxidized setup was two-fold for me. For one the recent concerns talked about here and for another just to see if it improved the taste/overall vape performance.

EDIT: Yes Whoopin, I prolly should have. My goal was to not use a lighter at all. The finger funk is NASTY STUFF. I'm burning through it now.

 

[Cyrus Vap]

Great work Bmays It took me ~2mls to get entirely through the finger corpse-icles and the fact that I vape unflavored doesn't help !

I avoided pulsing the coil without juice because I have done dry burns in the past that turned the mesh quite red, so figured I'd try and do this the 'safest' way assuming the validity of the data earlier in this thread

I see where you are coming from as I thought the same thing. However only the actual coil is getting that hot. My new un-oxidized mesh never got anywhere close to turning red.

Now, like kwalka was saying, previously when doing a dry burn to "clean" the wick/coil everything turned red. I seen that as a good thing. Maybe it still is. We may all be freaking over nothing at all.

The un-oxidized setup was two-fold for me. For one the recent concerns talked about here and for another just to see if it improved the taste/overall vape performance.

EDIT: Yes Whoopin, I prolly should have. My goal was to not use a lighter at all. The finger funk is NASTY STUFF. I'm burning through it now.

 

[fraghole]

All this talk has made break out the boge LR Carto's I've never tried yet. My dca shorty drip tip looks like it was made for these things.



Crap I just noticed on the package, in small letters it says "dekang inside". Damn, know I'm back to the Chinese stuff. Can't win for losing. Which is worse? oh well.

 

[Bmays]

Its been fun to watch vaping evolve. I never thought we would be back at petsmart for supplies after the blue foam passed. I look for these ceramic wicks to come way down in price. I personally think those will be replaced by something even better.

 

[Bmays]

Cartos aren't all that bad. Wife uses them all day every day. She dont have the patients for these rebuildables. When i told her what i was doing earlier today and about the "latest talks"...she had the last laugh. Rightfully so.

 

[bluenova]

Pfft, Got an AGA-T+ in the post and will probably arrive tomorrow. Feeling all down about wanting to get into RBAs. I choose to vape to avoid carcinogens now I read my latest toy might be carcinogenic

How comes nobody thought about this when Mesh became popular?

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Ulmer]

Class Idiot here: Great thread and great information if I can ever process it all properly.

Question: I believe I read earlier in this thread is that Al is a toxin we wanted to stay away from and yet I get from this post is that Al 203 is extremely stable and that at our temperatures we are good, correct? All of the foregoing relating of course to Kanthal wire.

Alumina (Al2O3) is a harmless compound. The health risks of Al2O3 on human health were not established.

 

[boneshark187]

*_Disclaimer_* I am not an expert by any means...but I do not think we have much to worry about, I don't think we are inhaling chromium vi.

I've been reading this since yesterday, and decided to do some internet research.

I really do think this applies to stainless steel welding and the fumes produced when welding at high temperatures. From what I've read chromium vi is produced when welding stainless steel at very high temperatures. It also depends on using tig/mig welding. The element of "alkali oxides" used in welding (which converts the regular chromium into toxic chromium 6) would not be used to heat up your ss wick.

This "Fume" while the stainless steel is being welding is airborne while doing the welding. In other words, this chromium 6 "fume" is in the air as you are welding stainless steel.

Chromium vi also appears to be green in color. It's also used as a pigment in some cases....I don't think I've seen any green color on my wicks.

I could be wrong, and yes this could all be solved with a air exposure type of test I'm sure.



Just my two pennies

 

[kwalka]

So I just torched another long U, and I'm noticing that the mesh is not changing to these rainbow colors. I've been Jack Frosting for a couple months now and with 500 and 635 I'm only hitting each side for maybe 30 seconds. The flame disperses across the mesh and it looks red, but that is the flame, not the mesh. Over the past 2 months I've learned that very minimal flame for a short period of time is all that's required to get what I need out of it. Does this mean I'm not reaching those dangerous levels, or is the oxidization process by it chemical makeup creating this situation?

 

[100%VG]

Originally Posted by Projectguy
Class Idiot here: Great thread and great information if I can ever process it all properly.

Question: I believe I read earlier in this thread is that Al is a toxin we wanted to stay away from and yet I get from this post is that Al 203 is extremely stable and that at our temperatures we are good, correct? All of the foregoing relating of course to Kanthal wire.

Alumina (Al2O3) is a harmless compound. The health risks of Al2O3 on human health were not established.

Alright, I'll play Class Idiot...

I find you answer "The health risks of Al2O3 on human health were not established." to be ambiguous.

Does stating that Health Risks were not Established mean that there actually aren't any?

Or does it mean that the Health Risks were Studied, and none were found?

 

[d9mel]

When SS is welded is there an immediate containment and neutralization process in place for the potential Cr(VI) that might contaminate the heated metal?