--- dwight elvey <dkelvey at hotmail.com> wrote:
Hi
I do know that Shugart used a poor quality pot metal
on
the hub a floppy drive. I've only see it once but
I've seen it a lot
on older radios. It is easy to spot, the metal is
all expanded
and crumbles.
I'm told that it is caused by aluminum
contamination. It seems
that aluminum doesn't alloy well. It tends to
accumulate at the
crystal boundaries. When it oxidizes, it causes that
typical
look of cracks and expanded metal.
Dwight
Yep, pot metal (i.e zinc alloys) will do that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot_metal. Contamination
is likely (I've heard of problems with other metals
too, lead...tin...I'm drawing a blank currently). I've
heard mention that electricity could do that too, but
I think it was an erroneous statement (a dude I used
to know sold old model trains, and some of the frames
would blow apart as mentioned, and he figured it was
due to the current running through it).
And I don't think that aluminum doesn't alloy well,
but rather it's particular in how it alloys.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
http://new.mail.yahoo.com