December 15, 2010

Here's how to make a ferrofluid. A recent post on a certain blue filter you may have heard of was deleted because the poster fell for a hoax, seriously linking to a video that purports to explain how to make a ferrofluid at home

The first link above gives a somewhat complicated approach. There's a simpler way to make ferromud here on Youtube. You just mix some olive oil and some fine iron powder like the stuff you can get at a welding supply shop. (Apparently a true ferrofluid uses ferrous materials ground into nanoparticles, so this coarser stuff is really ferromud.) There's also an excellent information source and list of different ferromud-making guides on the personal site of a guy named Dan. And, of course, you could just buy some.

posted by Jay Kinetic 14 years ago
  • My doctor says I should be getting more ferrofluids in my diet. Or something like that. I should've taken notes.
  • I thought I smelt a rat. Now that we've got that ironed out, I'd steel like to know why you posted this muck.
  • Huh, my whole post didn't go through correctly. There was supposed to be more text and a link after the words "purports to explain how to make a ferrofluid at home". Here's the hoax version on the certain other blue filter: http://www.metafilter.com/98454/Home-ferrofluids The links that actually got posted are, as far as I can tell, legit. I plan to try the easy method sometime. Maybe I'll post video.
  • Oh, and the method the hoax suggests is mixing oil and black printer ink, which just produces a mess.
  • Here's the hoax video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsQh1AT6qUE
  • Ferretfluid