Where the
world gathers for metal finishing
Q&As since 1989


-----

Fire vs. Water for nails science project

Hey! wow.. this is a really easy on going site.. so far I actually understood everything and in science that's AMAZING.. not that I'm bad or anything it's just that some people talk a lot of jibberish.. and not even explaining what they were discussing in the first place.. but anyways.. I'm doing a report on rusting nails too.. and I'm actually having fun, me and my partner had to choose what factor / procedure we wanted to do, and we thought up something really cool, which is heating the nail in fire, then putting it in ice water.. the problem is that we had to do a control..and comparison.. which means.. that we had to do the part with the ice water for a long time as well.. and we couldn't do ice water because the temperature had to be the same through the 3 days.. and meaning either we had to put it in the refrigerator, or use room temperature water.. our control is not to heat up the nail and put it in fire...just to put it in water.. but our comparison is kind of confusing because I'm thinking of doing 3 different tests for comparison and I'm not quite sure what to do.. like the water .. hot, lukewarm and then ice water, or is it like pure water, or you know.. so may you please help me figuring out the comparison.. see other students are putting the nail in water, and their comparison is 7-up, Pepsi, and vinegar [in bulk on eBay or Amazon] or something but that has nothing to do with the water part, because they all have different substances.. thanks

Gena (La-La)
Student - London, Ontario, Canada
2004

---

2004

Hello,

How about something like this:

Your study would be on how temperature affects rust development.

Your control would be a nail that you dip in room temp water every day for 30 seconds, then pull out of the water and expose to air for the rest of the day.

One experimental test would be another nail that you do the same with, but when your exposing it to air, do it in the refrigerator -- that one has a lower temperature.

Another experimental test would be another nail that you dipped in water and that dried quickly with heat - or, you could use hot water in place of room temp water.

Then, change other temp related variables as you see fit.

Basically - make your control do the same thing as all your experimental pieces, but remove the temperature variable. If you like, you could throw another nail into the mix that doesn't ever get submerged - but nothing is too likely to happen to it.

Jim Gorsich
Compton, California, USA