Ferro Experiment – Final

Ferro Experiment

This three part work is a study of pattern using magnets and ferromagnetic materials, including video, physical/motion, and physical/static portions. Each portion exhibits a unique experience of the patterns and shapes created by the ferromagnetic material’s interaction with the magnetic field and its surround medium.

Physical/Static

These objects are each made of ferromagnetic particles and a suspending medium.

Types of Particles: Steel Wool #0000, Steel dust from 150 sandpaper, Steel dust from and iron file. Suspending Mediums: Silicone Sealant, Hot Glue, Super Glue, Paraffin Wax.

Physical/Motion

This contraption exhibits the intriguing behavior of steel dust gathering into lines and flipping over end-on-end. It is counter intuitive behavior since these steel lines have no visible source of the forces acting upon them, just the magnetic field.

Video

This video portrays more particles acting under the influence of a magnetic field.

Types of Particles: Steel Wool #0, Steel Wool #0000, Steel dust from 150 sandpaper, Steel dust from and iron file. Suspending Mediums: Canola Oil, Vegetable Oil, Mineral Oil, Air.

Music by James Storey

Acknowledgements

Thanks for your help: Phil Galanter, R.J. Pena, Brian Smith, James Storey, Jim Murphy

Thanks to Tiffany Sanchez, Sarah Spofford for the super magnets. Thanks to Cameron Coker for the light box.

Making Ferro Objects Round 3

Here I am back at it with new materials. This time I got some superglue, epoxy, and paraffin wax to try. I also picked up an iron file from my dad when I was at home. It is much courser than the sand paper and creates much larger dust particles. They actually look pretty sparkly.

The superglue actually worked really well. Although it’s a bit dangerous to have magnets suddenly adjusting the trajectory of your hand while open superglue is nearby. Anyway… the superglue effectively froze the particles in place. The formations of particles from the sandpaper and from the iron file look very different, but they are both very interesting.

Since the superglue ended up working really well, I decided to skip the epoxy for now. Enough of the very permanent glues for today.

The ended up being very unruly. I used tealight tins as my wax heating container by holding it above a lit tealight with a wrench. This wouldn’t have been a problem, but the wrench was magnetic so in order to pour the wax out effectively, I would often get too close and everything would smash together. Very frustrating. But with the wax you can scrap up the smashed one, with the iron particles in it and melt it down again. Having the particles in the melting wax tin worked well (though better with the iron file particles than the sandpaper particles). The particles would line up and hop out of the tin, covered in just the wax that sticks.

I wish the wax had been a little more transparent, but oh well. Perhaps another time.

I think I will put all my objects on a light table. I really liked Chiang Leng’s memory project for 622. She made all these little resin blocks and put them on a light box. it looked really cool. It also reminds me of them being like specimens or slides for an experiment.

Pretty!

Super glue and epoxy. I didnt end up using the epoxy though.

Paraffin wax block from hobby lobby

Tealights! for melting and just using the metal cup.

First Success

Yeah… so this happened

A lot. Like four times.

Destruction

The bounty!

Video Progress

So editing… SO OVERWHELMING. But I keep trying! What I have so far is just a bunch of clips of the interesting bits. There is actually a lot of footage (at least by my standards), so it’s a lot to remember all of it. This will be a good step for narrowing down the footage for the final video. I’m trying to keep the documentary tips in mind as I look over everything.

James Storey kindly agreed to write music for my piece. A work-in-progress version of the music is in the videos so I can get a feel for what works. I really like how the music is turning out.

VIDEOS

Box Making

So I after thinking about it for a bit, I decided I want to make this a three part work. The first two being the video and an array of little objects with particles trapped in them. The third would be a set of moving contraptions set up to show specific patterns that different magnet and particle combinations can make. I’m not sure if I want to make it motorized or not. Motors are cool, but I think the overhead is too high. Plus some kind of a human powered contraption is so much more tactile. I decided to make two contraptions, but ultimately decided to use just one.

So, the story of this adventure takes us over thanksgiving break. I went home for the holiday, and my dad was quite thrilled that I wanted to build things. We happily went out to the garage to begin construction of my contraptions (see pictures).

The first contraption is meant to show what I like to call the “roll over” effect. As you rotate the magnet, the particles attempt to stay aligned with the magnetic field. This causes them to clump into tiny lines that appear to roll with the magnet. It is quite intriguing; I have some video of the effect somewhere in another post.

The second contraption was meant to show the effects of a magnet spinning along its axis. There are cool videos of ferrofluid trapped in a thin layer, making cool patterns in a rotating magnetic field. Well as it turns out, you just cant rotate the magnet fast enough by hand to get anything interesting. This one would require a motor to get it to work at all. So sadly this contraption gets left out.

Ideally I would have a few interesting and working contraptions. But for now just the one is good enough!

Wooden boards and 1 inch wooden blocks!

Some brass screws for structural integrity.

Drilling out the center piece for holding the magnet.

Drilling out the axel hole in the box.

Parts for the crank so it can turn

Everything working together!

Working on the second contraption.

Didnt end up using this one. It needs a motor to spin fast enough.

Making Ferro Objects Round 2

More experiments with trapping the ferromagnetic material! This time entails more silicone sealant and also hot glue and elmer’s glue

The hot glue ended up being a little easier to deal with than the silicone. I went from having to wait hours for the object to set so I can be removed from the influence of the magnet, I only have to wait a few minutes for the hot glue to cool. Faster iterations makes it easier to try slight differences in methods for particle dropping and glue spreading.

It seemed it was a little easier for the dust to penetrate into the hot glue than the caulk. I was able to get lots of nice streaks as the dust particles embedded themselves in the glue. But they set very quickly. I would like to try something that takes a little bit longer, like was or resin.

The elmer’s glue looks pretty gross. It dissolved some of the rust so now it has a red/green tinge. It is also proved really difficult to get off of the aluminum sheet. I don’t think I will continue with the Elmer’s glue.

Video Like Documentary

In class we talked about different ways to present the video of the ferromagnetic materials. Putting it together like an abstract documentary seems like a good idea to me. So now I have to edit things, UHGG! Haha well in preparation for this I have done a bit of research.

I watched a few episodes of The Blue Planet and Wild Ocean.

I also read some articles for tips on documentary making/editing. Some Notes:

You still need a conventional story arc: start, tension, resolution.
Adding stills with camera moves.
Be true to the point of view.
Tell the truth and portray the beauty of the subject.
“Look for and collect those magic moments of truth and beauty” (VideoUniversity).
Include little things to make it interesting.
Sometimes cuts aren’t as good if you need to put in a different and more interesting shot.
Good sound and color grading can go a long way for finishing touches.

Articles:

I think for me this will be mostly an exercise in picking interesting clips and leveraging continuity to create a compelling video. Also color correction!

Using An Even Better Lens

Woo I checked out he 100mm fancy canon lens. It is able to get in much tighter to the subject matter. You can get in to about 4 inches away; it’s awesome!

I dropped a bit of steel dust onto silicone caulk with a magnet under it. The dust shoots it the goo like little darts and gets stuck there. Then I flattened it with a transparency. I like the effect it’s creating.

Also here’s some pictures of the objects from before. I also discovered a ring on one where I placed a tiny magnet. I didn’t notice from the top. It seems the pull from the tiny magnet was stong enough to affect the dust through the silicone only about a half millimeter.

And now some uncut videos.

Using a Better Lens

Bought some rubber gloves to protect my hands from iron splinters. It’s so much nicer! I also checked out a T2i and long lens to get much better video than my point and shoot camera. But I need to check out the even better lens to get tighter shots.

Ferro Experiment 2

Since the last time, I bought a few things: vegetable oil, mineral oil, some little plastic containers, a couple new magnets, and probably a few other things.

I tried different shaped magnets and also multiple magnets. You have to be carefully approach with multiple magnets if you want the particles to be attracted to both. if you approach with one too quickly, all the particles will be attracted to that one.

This time I also tried grinding up a steel rod that I have had forever with some sand paper. I tried mixing it with the mineral oil. The results are quite promising. I actually makes spikes like you see in classic fancy ferrofluid. But the spikes arent as smooth and glassy, and they are pretty small.

I also found out you can make the particle clumps “roll”. Once aligned with the magnetic field the particles are very sensitive to the alignment of the magnet. if you move or rotate the magnet, the particles will try their best to follow along. This caused the steel wool bits to make what looks like rolling dust bunnies — cool and weird at the same time.

I also tried making some objects by mixing steel wool particles and silicone sealant. I thought It might be interesting, but it ended up looking pretty gross, like a hairy spit pile. I also tried mixing steel dust with the silicone. I hoped it would be sort of like that magnetic putty, but it didn’t really do much. I think I might try again with more dust in it.

It’s interesting working with these materials. Every few minutes or so, I forget about the magnets, or forget that what I am holding is attracted to magnets. This startles me as it causes a sudden change in the magnet, surrounding objects, and often my hands.

My new magnets!

Bottle with steel dust on the left, container with steel wool on the right

Steel rod and sand paper

Steel dust and mineral oil between sheets of transparency

Steel wool particles in mineral oil

I like all the bubbles. They appeal when you shake the mixture to separate the particles

Watch it move 1 of 3

Watch it move 2 of 3

Watch it move 3 of 3

Silicone caulk for sealing

Steel wool particles in silicone

Steel dust on silicone

Steel dust mixed into silicone and dried

Video from my point and shoot.

Observations/Comments:

Steel wool can be painful. It leaves splinters
you get better shapes if you hold the strong magnet about 4 inches or so away from the container
if you swirl the magnet around, the particles will stack up on the field lines to make taller spikes or “strings”
dust from sanding my steel rod works really well. It doesn’t take very much dust to get good results
slightly finer dust particles would probably yield smoother ferrofluid spikes
I don’t know if I need a surfactant, but I cant find Oleic acid or Citric acid

Ferro Experiment 1

Round 1 begins. Tiffany and Sarah let me borrow their giant magnets, and Garrett let me have some of his steel wool! I still need a few supplies still, but it’s a great starting point! For this round, I used Canola oil since it was in the house.

Observations: