What is the black powder in some counter weights? Is it ironore a magnet will pick it up.
Yair . . . Old Doug . it could be ilmenite, a black mineral sand . . . oxides of iron and titanium. It is used as a sand blasting medium and I have seen a concrete slurry of it made into a counterweight. We used to pick it up off beaches with j621's and it is HEAVY. Cheers.
I have been told that it is a by product of the steel industry. Heavy and cheap.
We have cut up a crane in the past and it had this stuff along with small scraps of steel. The one we cut up this week just had the black stuff in it. It also had a cast counter weight on it. They also want us to cut up a crane that was scraped and covered up with dirt it has something in the back of it.