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"Galvanizing" steel with mercury vapor in an oven

2003

Hi,

I have a question about home steel galvanizing. I had heard somewhere that you can galvanize small steel parts by putting the piece on the top rack of a home oven and on the bottom rack place an open tin can filled halfway with mercury, boric acid and salt then bake the piece at 400 deg for 1 hour, let cool, then repeat.

I have tried this and I ended up with a BIG mess. Please tell me what I did wrong. I assume I had the wrong proportion of chemicals. I have not been able to find any help anywhere else. thanks for your assistance.

Thomas Roedelbronn
Hobby / experimenter - Mesa, Arizona, USA <-- Fictitious posting

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Ed. note: An alert reader became alarmed about this letter. Upon examining the logs, we knew who posted it because he also has posted legitimate Q&A's here with his real name from the same IP address. We determined that this posting was a hoax--but not before the alert reader had notified the Mesa P.D.

We apologize to our readers that people sometimes engage in this stupidity. We also remind all visitors that you are never anonymous on the Internet because your IP address is always in the logs. The P.D. did not subpoena the poster's name or IP address, but he could have been in serious trouble for wasting police resources.

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I don't know where you heard this; I never have. Unless I am misunderstanding, it sounds incredibly dangerous (mercury is a brain-damaging cumulative poison). I hope you now have that oven safely buried at a secure land fill :-)

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
2003

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2003

I think I found a solution to my problem. I think maybe I should try a hardier acid like hydrochloric acid. I think a stronger acid will help the 'galvanizing' etch into and stick to the metal better I think. I hope this works. If not...back to the yard sales to get another oven. I sold the last one for $20.00. Thanks for all your help and recommendations. I've told all my hobbyist/experimenter friends about your magic.

Thomas Roedelbronn
Hobby / experimenter - Mesa, Arizona, USA <-- Fictitious posting

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I am amazed by the range of interests that appear on this site! However, heating mercury in an oven strikes me as being one of the more unusual ones and extremely dangerous. Mercury is highly poisonous and is accumulative, that is, it collects in the body where it does progressive harm and may even kill you. Furthermore, the vapours will have got into every crevice in the oven, where they will do progressive harm by forming amalgams. I would strongly recommend you dispose of your oven and DO NOT cook any food in it. However, you must dispose of it as contaminated waste as it is now potentially very harmful to the environment.

Trevor Crichton
R&D practical scientist
Chesham, Bucks, UK
2003

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I don't know where you got this info but there is no way you can "galvanize" anything like this. What you have done is contaminated your entire kitchen nevermind just the stove. If I were you I'd get a blood mercury test, I hope you didn't sell the stove to someone that was going to cook with it. please for your own sake don't try this ever again with any acid. whoever gave you this method was trying to harm you.

Erik Bobicki
- B.C., Canada
2003

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2006

------- WARNING - MERCURY IN AN OVEN CAN KILL YOU ----

My physics Prof's colleague died when a mercury thermometer broke inside an "Oven" while he was baking out his high vacuum apparatus. He did not notice it and was killed by mercury vapors.

---- DO NOT EVEN DREAM OF PUTTING MERCURY IN AN OVEN ----

David Hagen
- Goshen, Indiana, USA