# Aircraft spark plugs



## chrisv (Jan 31, 2011)

I manged to get hold of some spark plugs from light aircrafts which I thought would contain Plat and possibly Rhodium as per some blogs have suggested. Anyway, refined some of the main internal shaft of the plugs and did managed to drop some black pwder out of the AR solution but once I melted in, I couldn't get the freaking nugget out of the melting dish, lol..
So anyway, went onto taking the contacts off of another three plugs aswell as the int shafts, melted them all into one nugget and sent it off to the assay office to get some reports b4 I committed to actualy purchasing 100's of them. Got the results today, and they contained Nickle, Copper and traces of another(nothing presious).
So, I'm left thinking that it would only be military aircraft plugs and possibly, passenger liners that actualy have any PM's in the spark plugs..... ANY SUGGESTIONS???


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## stihl88 (Jan 31, 2011)

I know that some of the car spark plugs that contain Platinum only have a small piece of Platinum wire in the very tip of the plug.
The wire would only be approx 0.6mm thick by about 1.2mm long and is encased in the ceramic tip of the plug.


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## chrisv (Jan 31, 2011)

I have never heard of there being plat in car plugs but have heard of there being Palladium. Mind you, cars in Aus and back in my hometown(S.A) have bigger engines than the crap motors you get over here, LOL

P.S, quite surprised you replied to this considering the English took the ashes from ya(LOL), but your lucky as Im a SAFFA  , so I can just kinda let you off the hook with this one


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## arthur kierski (Feb 1, 2011)

chrisv---this black powder obtained could be ir or rh---or ir-rh alloy---it depends on the trademark of the spark plugs----example:champion spark plugs uses iridium in its eletrodes
Arthur


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## stihl88 (Feb 1, 2011)

Chris, There certainly is Platinum in Car spark plugs, you pay a premium for them if PT plugs is your thing. I bought a pack a while back and cracked them open to get the PT wire (Wasn't worth it by any means). Ive never heard of Palladium Plugs before, Iridium plugs you can buy for cars also.

I don't really follow the cricket, but i know you guys gave us a flogging!


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## chrisv (Feb 1, 2011)

Stihl88,
I have been told that some do contain Rhodium, Platinum, Palladium and also iridium.

http://www.sparkplugs.com/sparkplug411.asp?kw=Gold+Palladium&mfid=0

The bloke I got these plugs from, said in 1972, he stripped 10 of them, took out the centre long pins, contacts and the screws at the back(silver) and bak then, he got paid over £500 for them :shock: 

I have suggested to him that maybe these plugs are the same as computer scrap, back in them days, they couldn't do plating like they can nowadays. Back then, it was just a case of," if it worked it worked no matter how much PGM's they use," where as, today, it still works and they just use a very fine layer of PGM's.

But I'm still certain that military aircarfts plugs will contain alot more pgm's, guess I'm in the right place, freaking goverments over here spend billions of $$$ to build plains, and then near completion, they freaking distroy them as they now think its costing to much to maintain them. ROFL


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## chrisv (Feb 1, 2011)

Oh ya, forgot to add this one, didn't really want to but guess we are all in this together, and if I dont share these things, guess I shouldn't really expect you's to either. Enjoy the reading and finding new parts to get you PGM's LOL

http://www.ipa-news.com/en/55-0-Others.html


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## chrisv (Feb 1, 2011)

Thanks for your comment Arthur Kierski, They were bosch plugs but then again, the pins and contacts that we melted into nuggets were also Bosch plugs, but got no readings of and PGM's, its at times like this when I start doubting these assay offices and this isn't the first time I've had my doubts


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## Harold_V (Feb 2, 2011)

chrisv said:


> The bloke I got these plugs from, said in 1972, he stripped 10 of them, took out the centre long pins, contacts and the screws at the back(silver) and bak then, he got paid over £500 for them :shock:


Seems to me that bloke was long on tales and short on facts. He is, no doubt, a good yarn spinner. 
I had several aircraft platinum plugs given to me in the early 70's. Being a machinist and having a lathe, I parted the end off to recover the ground electrode, then broke the porcelain body to recover the center electrode. Combined, times ten, the yield, were I fortunate, wouldn't have been any more than about a gram of platinum. Do keep in mind, platinum at this point in time was well under $500/ounce. 

Harold


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## chrisv (Feb 2, 2011)

Good Point Harold, and I guess this is where your saying comes in," Wise people talk because they know what they are talking about, indiots talk as they feel they need to say something!" I love this saying Harold, but my father is getting sick of it as I keep on saying it to him, LOL

So with the kinda feedback I'm getting, they are just a waste of time, but then again, nobody has made any comments on military plugs, and although you say that this bloke is spinning tales, he did however tell me that the plugs were from a Spit Fire, and if military plugs are worth a try, I can get loads of them, but they aren't ganna be for free :lol:


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## Harold_V (Feb 2, 2011)

Don't get me wrong. They are well worth processing---my comment was that they are not loaded as was implied. 

In fairness, I have no clue of the origin of the ones I had, just that they were from aircraft. I would bet that they were from private airplanes, as they came from a small airport in Salt Lake City. 

I would encourage you to explore anything that contains platinum---including modern day auto spark plugs. I have no way of knowing if they're worth the effort, but you'd be well served to make an inquiry of the cost of new plugs. If they're $20 each, it would then be obvious that they are not worth much in platinum. That doesn't mean they're not worth processing, however. 

I failed to mention in my previous post, after I machined off the ends of the plugs, and removed the center electrode, I then placed the bits in my stock pot, where added solutions did the cleanup for me. The balance of the plug was discarded. When I cleaned out the stock pot, the tiny bits of platinum that were involved were in the bottom, free of steel. That's the only way I know what I had was not very rich in metal. I should have also mentioned that I recall that there was at least two different types of plug, with one having a much large diameter center electrode than the other, although both of them quite short---no more than ½" in length. Ground was different, too, but I'm having a hard time recalling the exact configuration. 

Harold


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## chrisv (Feb 2, 2011)

Thanks Harold, I did notice that the electrodes and the end tips/contacts where of differant size and diameter.

Well, I can get these plugs for £1 each(  ) but at the same time, these blokes that maintain these aircarfts also sub-contract to a small private airport and for this reason, the plugs are going to be mixed. 
We told these blokes we are interested in the plugs but haven't told them why, all we said was that we were building a Samuri Statue in our back garden and wanted to weld the plugs together to form it, ROFL


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## Oz (Feb 2, 2011)

chrisv said:


> Thanks Harold, I did notice that the electrodes and the end tips/contacts where of differant size and diameter.


I have not processed plugs but I have researched them. Based on that, if there are PGMs in the plugs you are recovering you will find the larger anodes to be predominantly platinum, the next smaller tip size to be Pt/Ir, then the smallest to be Ir/Rh. I will caution once again that this based on reading, not actual yield results.


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## chrisv (Feb 2, 2011)

Ok, as I mentioned above, I got the assay office to carry out a XRF assay report on two nuggets that were melted, one nugget was just the int shaft from top to bottom. So this nugget was "sample A", there other nugget was from the bottom contacts, the contacts I mean, is the 1 or on some plugs 2 pins that are spaced a couple of mills from the in shaft pin, this was "sample B". I also need to correct myself, I mentioned they were Bosch plugs, well, they were actualy Champion plugs, sorry for the miss interpretation of makes in my earlier post. Anyway, the results were as follows;
SAMPLE A
1st scan
Rim of ' shell ' nugget at yellow surface
64.99% Ni
17.74% Mn
10.95% Ti
4.56% Cr
1.75% Zr

2nd scan
Rim of ' shell ' nugget at white surface
69.78% Ni
15.08% Mn
9.14% Ti
4.47% Cr
1.54% Zr

3rd scan
Rim of ' shell ' nugget round curve pink surface
88.74% Ni
2.99% Mn
5.85% Ti
2.42% Cr

4th scan 
' shell ' nugget at black surface
93.33% Ni
3.51% Mn
3.15% Cr

SAMPLE B
1st scan
52.62% Ni
43.83% Cu
1.78% Fe
1.76% Mn

2nd Scan
52.84% Ni
37.87% Cu
3.39% Mn
2.01% Fe
2.82% Cr
1.07% Ti


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