Painting pointers website update

methods

Great web site - very informative. I was amused by the sentence: "Iron ore in its natural state does not rust" - surely iron ore IS rust in one form or another ie oxides of iron!!!!!

AWEM

I have some iron ore in my desk, small pebble sized pieces, they wont rust and they are not even magnetic.

The rust only occurs after its been wrought, I suppose if it did rust there would be none in the mines to mine 8-)

Stephen.

Agreed about the site ... and about that bit. The whole quote is "Iron ore in its natural state does not rust. The rusting process only starts after being wrought when the ore is converted into iron or steel, which is then susceptible to rusting caused by moisture." which shows a bit of confusion.

Iron ores are mainly oxides: haematite (Fe2O3), magnetite (Fe3O4) and others. They don't rust because they are already oxides. Apart from meteorites, there is practically no native iron on the earth's surface. Iron ore is first /smelted/ to make iron and then converted to make steel by reducing the carbon content. Iron used to be wrought to make (surprise!) wrought iron, but that was completely replaced by steel in the 19th century.

Ian