# Slag



## ROBBYBOBBY64 (Jun 24, 2020)

I found this piece of slag along with bigger pieces in the woods by a 1900-1920s bottle dump. Slag from brick or making iron. I am not sure. I like the look of it it is lighter in color than the glass slag and iron slag I have found in the past. A magnet barely sticks to it. It is kind of sharp and hard to hold. I have no idea what I will ever do with it. I might try sculpting a shape out of it.
ROBBYBOBBY64.


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## Timelypicken (Jun 24, 2020)

I would leave it how it is and put it on a shelf and maby put a bottle on top of it if it's stable enough


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## sandchip (Jun 27, 2020)

You sure it's not some old Cracker Jacks where the box rotted away?


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## Timelypicken (Jun 27, 2020)

sandchip said:


> You sure it's not some old Cracker Jacks where the box rotted away?


It does kinda look like that.p, but I don’t think that there is any chance they would still be there, and I think they would stink


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## Troutmaster08 (Jun 27, 2020)

I have a piece with charcoal still in it from the 1840s


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## Dogo (Jun 27, 2020)

There was a bog iron furnace (1790) near me and the slag is fairly  plentiful. Since it was made from sandstone, it has a lot more glass in it. That piece does not look like it.


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## ROBBYBOBBY64 (Jun 28, 2020)

sandchip said:


> You sure it's not some old Cracker Jacks where the box rotted away?


What no prize!
ROBBYBOBBY64.


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## ROBBYBOBBY64 (Jun 28, 2020)

Dogo said:


> There was a bog iron furnace (1790) near me and the slag is fairly  plentiful. Since it was made from sandstone, it has a lot more glass in it. That piece does not look like it.


Not much glass in this one. It looks like fused rock with metal drizzled on it. Big pieces left. I have a couple iron furnace slag that is loaded with metal and heavy. This one is light and might float. Very almond white for slag. Those white pebbles in the slag I have seen bigger pieces in the iron slag. I can post that one today.
ROBBYBOBBY64.


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## sandchip (Jun 28, 2020)

Timelypicken said:


> It does kinda look like that.p, but I don’t think that there is any chance they would still be there, and I think they would stink



Lord, help me.  I was kiddin'.



ROBBYBOBBY64 said:


> What no prize!
> ROBBYBOBBY64.



Glad you got it, man.

In all seriousness, my guess would be buildup in an earlier coal burning combustion chamber, where dirty coal was used.  Not dirty in the modern sense, but coal that had the occasional dirt, gravel, etc.


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## ROBBYBOBBY64 (Jun 28, 2020)

sandchip said:


> Lord, help me.  I was kiddin'.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It looks like the foam off of slag. Don't they add some kind of white colored stone to the iron ore or does the molten ore pick rocks and stones up when molten? I have a big piece with lots of iron and black and white stones. Looks like a meteorite but isn't. 
ROBBYBOBBY64.


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## sandchip (Jun 28, 2020)

ROBBYBOBBY64 said:


> It looks like the foam off of slag...



That sounds reasonable, too.


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## Dewfus (Jun 28, 2020)

ROBBYBOBBY64 said:


> It looks like the foam off of slag. Don't they add some kind of white colored stone to the iron ore or does the molten ore pick rocks and stones up when molten? I have a big piece with lots of iron and black and white stones. Looks like a meteorite but isn't.
> ROBBYBOBBY64.


Is this something collected ? Where do I sign up I'll hunt slag lol ...


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## ROBBYBOBBY64 (Jun 28, 2020)

Dewfus said:


> Is this something collected ? Where do I sign up I'll hunt slag lol ...


Dewy slag hunter the movie!


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## Dewfus (Jun 28, 2020)

ROBBYBOBBY64 said:


> Dewy slag hunter the movie!


Lol sounds good sounds like a hit


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## ROBBYBOBBY64 (Jun 28, 2020)

Dewfus said:


> Lol sounds good sounds like a hit


I would wouldn't miss an episode buddy!


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## embe (Jun 29, 2020)

Is it magnetic?  Looks like pieces of fire brick melted with...some type of metal.  Could be residue from a casting.

If there was an industrial foundry in the area you'd probably be digging up examples like this by the truckload

**sorry, missed the part about being partially magnetic**  Some type of alloy.  Do you have access to an XRF gun? That would tell you exactly what material (but not the entire history behind it)


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## willong (Jul 1, 2020)

ROBBYBOBBY64 said:


> Don't they add some kind of white colored stone to the iron ore or does the molten ore pick rocks and stones up when molten?



Limestone was used as a flux if I am correctly recalling what my late father once told me.

My dad and his father both worked in steel mills. I think one or two of Dad's brothers also worked steel-making jobs in the eastern US for short stints.

After he was discharged from the army at the close of World War Two, Dad towed a house trailer ("mobile home" occurs much later in the  etymology) from Pennsylvania, moving his parents, youngest brother and himself out to Redlands, CA. (I believe that Granddad and Dad both had jobs waiting for them at the Kaiser Steel plant in Fontana--they were working there during my youth in any event.) Dad oft described the move as an ordeal resembling the cross-country journey of the Joads in _The Grapes of Wrath. _He hauled the trailer with a dilapidated old car that had mechanical, not even hydraulic, let alone power brakes. My father developed a lifelong hatred of trailer towing from the experience; but it was accompanied by an appreciation of The Salvation Army that lasted just as long. The charity bought the family some tires when they got stranded along the route by multiple tire failures.

From the age of eight through my junior year of high school, we lived within earshot of the Kaiser Steel Mill, the former site of which is now occupied by Auto Club Speedway, formerly California Speedway.  *








						Auto Club Speedway - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				



*Back then, it was a mostly rural area in a town of approximately 15,000 population. Other than the steel plant, the main feature of the neighborhood was "egg ranches" at the time. Now, the population is closing in on 220,000 and much of the region is unrecognizable to someone who has been away for decades. I used to hunt rabbits in abandoned vineyards--the businesses were killed by Prohibition--that are now covered by elbow-to-elbow apartment complexes.

Go to the following coordinates in Google Earth (or Maps) to see what overpopulation can do in less than one lifetime: *11SMT5357473123 *  That industrial yard was the field where my dad and I raised five beeves during 1959-1960. Zoom out and notice the densely-packed residential area to the north. That's where the weed strewn remnants of vineyards formerly lay.  Once, Dad and I even found fresh cougar tracks in the dust by his parked truck when we returned from a short evening hunt, not more than one to two hours, in the area.

On the ridge farther north, near San Sevaine Flats in 1962, Dad and I walked up on a mature Nelson (Desert) Bighorn ram that was bedded on an edge overlooking a canyon. Facing into the wind, the ram never heard us as we approached with 15 or 20 feet of him.

One of the things I like about bottle collecting is the appreciation and preservation of history it inspires.

I apologize for taking off on a tangent. I was doing okay while reading through the general discussion of slag; but your question about a white stone additive brought on a flood of memories.

Returning, somewhat, to topic:  I recall the entire south boundary of the Kaiser Steel facility as being a man-made ridge of slag. I have often wondered if the material was incorporated into the high banked turns of the racetrack.


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## sandchip (Jul 1, 2020)

Your dad was one of those real men, an increasingly rare breed nowadays.  Don't apologize, I enjoyed the story.  God help us if we are ever forced into another war like WWII.  We'll play hell getting all the whineyass weenies to step up and be actual men to defend what previous generations died for.  Now, I apologize for heading down that road nobody wants to take anymore.


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## Bohdan (Jul 1, 2020)

It appears to be a conglomerate of Leverite.


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