Big Boys Hobbies

9952 pounder

yooper69

yooper69

Elite Member
Joined
Dec 28, 2017
Messages
2,027
Location
Michigan's U.P
thumbnail.jpg this one is on display in Calumet Mi
 
T-Man said:
About a block from where I went to High School. Know that piece well.
Click to expand...

You know it well . I parked at the school and walked over to get the pic. Looked like the snow was hard enough to walk on but no sank up to waist and pant legs push up shoes filled with snow . Sick of this !!!!. Weather reports are saying possibly 2 feet this weekend :(:(:(:(:(:(
 
Woah, that's huge! Love the green verdigris on it. I wonder how many detectorists have walked away from a spot because something like that was under their coil.
 
Not knowing much about float copper I may have a dumb question. But here it goes any way.

With these large float copper pieces is it a combination of metals with the most prevalent being copper or is it pretty much all copper?

Ray
 
RayK said:
Not knowing much about float copper I may have a dumb question. But here it goes any way.

With these large float copper pieces is it a combination of metals with the most prevalent being copper or is it pretty much all copper?

Ray
Click to expand...
That's a great question! I've read Yooper's posts with interest before, and never thought of that possibility...

In other mineral formations (I have some experience in the North Cascades of Washington), the coinage metals are often mixed... They were mining FeCuS2 where I was, not native copper. But there was enough silver and gold in it that it was worthwhile doing the chemical extractions to separate them out... even worth using the cyanide method to get the gold. (There was lead, too, and the Fe.)

But the ore body that came from could be quite different. I'd definitely be curious if I found any float copper!
 
RayK said:
Not knowing much about float copper I may have a dumb question. But here it goes any way.

With these large float copper pieces is it a combination of metals with the most prevalent being copper or is it pretty much all copper?

Ray
Click to expand...

The vast majority of it is solid copper. There is some that may have some silver veins running through it as well but typically not in enough quanitity to make it worthwhile disecting. Often there is poor rock attached to it. Back when the mines were still open they had large stamps that in the simplest of forms just lifted and dropped a heavy hunk of steel on the copper/poor rock mix and would bust the rock off of it.
 
RayK said:
Not knowing much about float copper I may have a dumb question. But here it goes any way.

With these large float copper pieces is it a combination of metals with the most prevalent being copper or is it pretty much all copper?

Ray
Click to expand...

99% pure. You could take a piece the size of a golf ball lay it on 10 inches of concrete and beat it with a 20 pound sledgehammer however many times you could swing it and the copper would go through the concrete and the sledgehammer would have more marks than the copper would. It is crazy hard.
 
yooper69 said:
99% pure. You could take a piece the size of a golf ball lay it on 10 inches of concrete and beat it with a 20 pound sledgehammer however many times you could swing it and the copper would go through the concrete and the sledgehammer would have more marks than the copper would. It is crazy hard.
Click to expand...
HMMMM I did not know that. Interesting, and a very cool fact. Thanks yooper.;);):cool:
 
Dug a 14 pound nugget of float copper several years back. I took it to work with me to have it tested. I worked at the worlds largest forge shop. Took the piece into the met. lab and had it analyzed. The results said 96.4% Copper, 1.8 Iron with minute amounts of other metals. Trapper
 
jack&jill said:
Dug a 14 pound nugget of float copper several years back. I took it to work with me to have it tested. I worked at the worlds largest forge shop. Took the piece into the met. lab and had it analyzed. The results said 96.4% Copper, 1.8 Iron with minute amounts of other metals. Trapper
Click to expand...

I believe melting point is either 2400-2600 degrees
 
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