Origin of the paint that was found as red-gray chips - any ideas?

[Oystein]

This is an interesting point.

If we determine that only 10% of the paint was scraped off during the collapse, and Jones says that there was a hundred tons of his "thermite" in the dust, then it would follow that there must have been a thousand tons of his gook applied.

At that point, the ridiculousness of his assertions become apparent to all but the idiotic.

Not sure if you paraphrase Jones correctly there, but suppose you do, it was a non-starter to begin with. I seem to recall Harrit making statements along the same line, speculating about really serious amounts of unreacted nano-thermite. One would have to ask how they managed at the same time to use such high-tech material and rig the building with perferct stealth both before and during the collapse, and bring them down wonderfully, but fail to ignite tens or hundreds of tons!? How much more reacted thermite would they have to assume, or what level incompetence in burning the stuff?

However, the same kind of problem of course arises with paint - there wasn't hundreds of tons of paint in the buildung (can someone crunch some numbers and confirm this?), and much less than that in the dust.

I prefer to think that they greatly overestimate the occurance of that material. There is no mention of relative or absolute amounts of chippy material in the Harrit paper itself.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

Core and perimeter columns were also somewhat shielded by drywall. the floor assemblies went right into the blender. A couple good whacks and the foam and concrete would be parting ways with the trusses and floor pans. Now every moving object that they meet starts chipping paint.

. . . to say nothing of the paint that flakes off metal when you start twisting it.

 

[leftysergeant]

. . . to say nothing of the paint that flakes off metal when you start twisting it.

And, of all the components of the building, the floor elements would have been the most prone to twisting during the collapses.

We need to know what sort of paint was on them.

The preponderance of the paint chips in the dust samples may be partly the result of the rates at which they settled out of the clouds of dust.

The drywall and concrete dust would have been lighter, thus more widely-dispersed. The microspherules of iron-rich material and the paint chips would have been significantly more dense, thus settling out much closer to the site.

We have, thus, no real clue as to how much of this stuff was in the debris over-all, unless someone sorted that out from other sites. Jones apparently had access to samples only from two locations, down-stream of the turbidity flow from the collapse and at a fairly short distance.

There is no way on earth to reach a useful conclusion about how much of this stuff there was.

 

[Oystein]

And, of all the components of the building, the floor elements would have been the most prone to twisting during the collapses.

We need to know what sort of paint was on them.

Yep ^^ And now we need a volunteer who bugs the companies that built the floors. ANd those who did renovations. Oh my.

The preponderance of the paint chips in the dust samples may be partly the result of the rates at which they settled out of the clouds of dust.

The drywall and concrete dust would have been lighter, thus more widely-dispersed. The microspherules of iron-rich material and the paint chips would have been significantly more dense, thus settling out much closer to the site.

We have, thus, no real clue as to how much of this stuff was in the debris over-all, unless someone sorted that out from other sites.

You are somewhat speculating here on what materials would drift farther, and I don't believe you just because it sounds plausible. However it is established fact that dust tends to sort itself as long as it flows.

Jones apparently had access to samples only from two locations, down-stream of the turbidity flow from the collapse and at a fairly short distance.

No, the Harrit-paper analysed four samples from four locations. Two were pretty close to each other, a couple of thousand feet north (upwind) from GZ, one was just across the street from GZ to the south, and one was at a larger distance out east: Brooklyn Bridge.

But I know of no detailed tallying of the chip count at each individual location. Since we just said that dust tends to sort itself, we'd expect different relative amounts.

There is no way on earth to reach a useful conclusion about how much of this stuff there was.

It is not highly important anyway for the task at hand; we just want to know what it is, not how much of it there was.

 

[leftysergeant]

It is not highly important anyway for the task at hand; we just want to know what it is, not how much of it there was.

How much is probably more important to someone critiquing Harrit on the amount that was in the towers.

 

[Ivan Kminek]

To leftysergeant and Oystein

Thanks, leftysergeant, for interesting ideas.
Concerning alleged second red primer used for protection of the huge amount of floor steel elements, could the NIST report omit such an important "detail" (since they consider and discuss only this red Tnemec)?
Concerning amount of paint: let suppose that hundred ton of this paint was used (similar amount as this of alleged unburned n....t). Let say this paint had a density around 2 g/cm³ and it was applied in 0.05 mm thick layer (there is a mention in NIST report that tested Tnemec layers were 0.025 mm (1 mil) thick, so I am roughly keeping this figure for the second primer). Than, 1 m² of such paint layer weighs 0.1 kg, one ton of paint is good for 10 000 m² and one hundred ton can cover an area about 1 million m². This looks as a quite large area, but one single floor of WTC1 or 2 (outside of the building core) had area (roughly) 7500 m². Still, it seems to be possible the one hundred ton of such paint is enough for floors of both (all three) towers. (Sorry for the uncertain inputs, such a layer thickness, of these "calculations".)
Concerning composition: I tend to consider the second dust analysis perfomed by French truther here www(dot)darksideofgravity(dot)com/marseille_gb.pdf as a good and honest. This truther found mostly red chips which were red on both sides (no gray layer) and, according to XEDS, they contained not only C, Al, Si, Fe and O, but also Ca, S, K. So we could consider also these elements as contributing to the composition of these rather mysterious red little things.
Concerning variable composition of dust at various places, this is a quite natural presumption and I found, e.g., interesting maps of various iron compounds occurrence here pubs(dot)usgs(dot)gov/of/2001/ofr-01-0429/feats-1um.html.
Concerning origin of chips (a) to (d) (and “French chips”as well), could not they be simply red particles of some iron-rich mineral (present in the concrete or gypsum)? Even iron ores contain aluminosilicates (i.e. Al and Si) and carbonates (i.e. C). I know it is not very probable but it could perhaps explain the high concentration of red chips (if it was really so high).

 

[Oystein]

Thanks, leftysergeant, for interesting ideas.
Concerning alleged second red primer used for protection of the huge amount of floor steel elements, could the NIST report omit such an important "detail" (since they consider and discuss only this red Tnemec)?

I must admit I have never looked at the NIST report in search of what they havre to say about primer and Tnemec, so I don't know. Guess I'll have to do that sometime soon...

Concerning amount of paint: let suppose that hundred ton of this paint was used (similar amount as this of alleged unburned n....t). Let say this paint had a density around 2 g/cm³ and it was applied in 0.05 mm thick layer (there is a mention in NIST report that tested Tnemec layers were 0.025 mm (1 mil) thick, so I am roughly keeping this figure for the second primer). Than, 1 m² of such paint layer weighs 0.1 kg, one ton of paint is good for 10 000 m² and one hundred ton can cover an area about 1 million m². This looks as a quite large area, but one single floor of WTC1 or 2 (outside of the building core) had area (roughly) 7500 m². Still, it seems to be possible the one hundred ton of such paint is enough for floors of both (all three) towers. (Sorry for the uncertain inputs, such a layer thickness, of these "calculations".)

Yes, this is exactly the kind of calculation that ought to be done - if it was relevant
Each steel element has at least four (e.g. box columns) long sides. An I-shaped beam would have even more surface per mass; each floor truss consists of two horizontal beams/girders and a number of diagonal braces. Then there are the corrugated metal decks, having more surface area than the office floors themselves. Were these painted with primer?
Etc.

I think it's not unreasonable that each floor had steel surfaces covered with primer that were 2 to several times the floor area. Office space per floor was less than you say (twin towers were 63x63m, that is 3969m²), but let's say 10,000m² of painted steel per floor isn't outlandish, and that would work out to more than 1 million m² per tower. One hundred tons of primer per twin tower seems to be about the right order of magnitude!
Of this, however, only a small percentage would wind up in the dust.

Concerning composition: I tend to consider the second dust analysis perfomed by French truther here www(dot)darksideofgravity(dot)com/marseille_gb.pdf as a good and honest.

Another paper I was so far too lazy to study.
http://www.darksideofgravity.com/marseille_gb.pdf
The author, Frédéric Henry-Couannier, has posted here at JREF as member HenryCo.

This truther found mostly red chips which were red on both sides (no gray layer) and, according to XEDS, they contained not only C, Al, Si, Fe and O, but also Ca, S, K. So we could consider also these elements as contributing to the composition of these rather mysterious red little things.
Concerning variable composition of dust at various places, this is a quite natural presumption and I found, e.g., interesting maps of various iron compounds occurrence here pubs(dot)usgs(dot)gov/of/2001/ofr-01-0429/feats-1um.html.

(no comment)

Concerning origin of chips (a) to (d) (and “French chips”as well), could not they be simply red particles of some iron-rich mineral (present in the concrete or gypsum)? Even iron ores contain aluminosilicates (i.e. Al and Si) and carbonates (i.e. C). I know it is not very probable but it could perhaps explain the high concentration of red chips (if it was really so high).

Don't think they come from any concrete, due to their shape (they are indeed flat layers, and I agree with Harrit's assessment that "“nice adherent film” fit very well with our observations of the red-chips", and most certainly not from gypsum, as hematite would not be expected there.

 

[Ivan Kminek]

I must admit I have never looked at the NIST report in search of what they havre to say about primer and Tnemec, so I don't know. Guess I'll have to do that sometime soon...

We should simply make some inquiry to NIST. Or... you should do this since you are a respected debunker

Yes, this is exactly the kind of calculation that ought to be done - if it was relevant
Each steel element has at least four (e.g. box columns) long sides. An I-shaped beam would have even more surface per mass; each floor truss consists of two horizontal beams/girders and a number of diagonal braces. Then there are the corrugated metal decks, having more surface area than the office floors themselves. Were these painted with primer?
Etc.

I think it's not unreasonable that each floor had steel surfaces covered with primer that were 2 to several times the floor area. Office space per floor was less than you say (twin towers were 63x63m, that is 3969m²), but let's say 10,000m² of painted steel per floor isn't outlandish, and that would work out to more than 1 million m² per tower. One hundred tons of primer per twin tower seems to be about the right order of magnitude!
Of this, however, only a small percentage would wind up in the dust.

Exactly: no exact calculation can give us really good clue if we have no idea of how much of red paint (material) was stripped out from the steel during collapses.

Another paper I was so far too lazy to study.
wwwdot)darksideofgravity(dot)com/marseille_gb.pdf[/url]
The author, Frédéric Henry-Couannier, has posted here at JREF as member HenryCo.

(no comment)

Look at these pictures of red chips on HenriCo's web www(dot)darksideofgravity(dot)com/redreds.pdf . Many of them (although unburned) seem to contain "shiny microspheres" typical (according to Harrit et al.) of burned t...t. What does it mean? Could it be a sign that some chemical reaction took place in these particles during fires and collapse and can be "semi-burned" (whether they are paint or whatever)? Btw, just today I found this video of Kevin Ryan about an experiment with nano...thing www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=O66UyGNrmSI. Here, the burned nano...t looks roughly similar to HenriCo's chips. (Sorry to mention this here, but it is a quite new thing). I do not think that this resemblance means something crucial (keeping in mind that even chips (a) to (e) had the same appearence, but different origin). Looking at this video I thought: 1) This stuff burned nicely but was not able even to melt that tiny glass beaker. How it could melt WTC columns? 2) After burning, the thermal glow of nano...t was diminishing in several seconds; how it could remain very hot for days or weeks even in the debris? (I know very well, we should move this matter to the relevant forum...)

Don't think they come from any concrete, due to their shape (they are indeed flat layers, and I agree with Harrit's assessment that "“nice adherent film” fit very well with our observations of the red-chips", and most certainly not from gypsum, as hematite would not be expected there.

OK, chips are mostly flat. But even some particles of mineral can be flat in this tiny scale, consider just mica or vermiculite as typical examples. I am not sure about concrete and gypsum either, but there was a lot of these stuffs in WTC, and you can not exclude the minor presence of iron minerals in them. But this was simply my "nice try", nothing else

 

[sheeplesnshills]

I don't think there's any chain of custody, so what's to prevent him from testing anything he wanted and claiming it came from NY.

They all passed through Jones hands before being tested. He could have adulterated them with anything and we would never know.

Now if he had acted professionally and had an independent person pick up and distribute the samples along with similar dust as a control and then had them tested by several independent labs in a double blind test..............

Instead they carried out a series of incompetent tests on material of now worthless provenance, deliberately misinterpreted the results and had them published in a vanity journal...........typical twoofer fail.

 

[sheeplesnshills]

I think the proof lies in the fact that they published data that unequivocally DISproves thermite and supports a strong case for paint.
Had they tampered with the dust, or lied about the data, they would have introduced real thermite into the sample or forged the data such that it would actually support their conclusion.

The fact that the data does not at all support their conclusions is a strong hint that the data is real and honest.

Real, possibly, honest no. They knew their findings were bogus and hence the vanity press journal. They made conclusions for which they had no data to support.

 

[Ivan Kminek]

(I am not allowed to edit my own posts now, what is wrong?) Concerning my last contribution, sorry for OT with n...t experiment. I am also not sure if HenryCo's findings on chips can be taken as kind of proof, since they were not published in any journal; but it seems to be probable, that such chips were really found in HenryCo's dust sample.

 

[Oystein]

Real, possibly, honest no. They knew their findings were bogus and hence the vanity press journal. They made conclusions for which they had no data to support.

No disagreement: I agree fully that the conclusions are dishonest and bogus. But the data is not. At worst, the data has been derived at partially by incompetent handling. For example, not seeing that chips a-d are different from the MEK-soaked chip, and thus treating them incorrectly as the same, can well be explained by incompetence, so there is no need to ascribe it to ill intent.

Remember, we were discussing chain of custody. There is no need at this time to have ill faith in what they report about the origin, also no need to have ill faith in their treatment of the samples. The paper and conclusions fail easily and fully without such unwarranted assumptions.

 

[Oystein]

(I am not allowed to edit my own posts now, what is wrong?)

Nothing wrong. It's a feature that applies to long-time members as well as to newbies like yourself: You can edit your post only for a short while after posting. I never paid attention to how long after that would be. Something like 15 or 30 minutes. This allows you to correct obvious mistakes of formatting, spelling, or to add a thought you forgot. Or delete things you regret immediately after you wrote them.
However it is good that post are in general stored for posteriority as they were when written.

Concerning my last contribution, sorry for OT with n...t experiment. I am also not sure if HenryCo's findings on chips can be taken as kind of proof, since they were not published in any journal; but it seems to be probable, that such chips were really found in HenryCo's dust sample.

Harrit's findings as well weren't published in any real journal
I think we learn from the Harrit paper that you can find chips in the dust that look similar, but are different. Harrit found at least 2 different varieties. HenryCo may have found the same, or still different ones.
Nevertheless, HenryCo's contribution can be used for what it's worth, even if not published. Just take it with the usual grain of salt.

 

[SkepticOfLies]

incompetent or dishonest.

All truthers fit that description.

 

[Ivan Kminek]

linseed oil and other crosslinkable/polymerizable binders

We have several properties of that paint:

1. XEDS spectrum
2. Micrographs
3. DSC traces
4. Specific resistivity = roughly 10 ohm*m
5. No significant dissolution, only swelling, in MEK

I can't assess how reliable the last two items are. #4 suffered from small sample size, and the result may be dominated, to the point of being worthless, by the admitted contamination with gray material. #5 is somewhat dubious as we cannot know which of the at least two different kinds of red material they tested with MEK.

However, in principle, with what we already know about the paint (some ingredients, pigment size, ...), it might be possible to find candidate paints from catalogues, and then test their resistivity and dissolubility in MEK.

I would like to note that if, e.g., linseed oil was used as a binder in any "red material", we can not expect that would stay soluble, it polymerizes when in contact with air (whether for purpose or not). I remember btw that in old times we used linseed oil together with a hemp rope for steel plumbing connections in our house. After several years, we were not able to release these connections in any way since linseed oil was already extremely rigid and insoluble. This is also observed with other such seed oils and of course it is a normal/desired property of many synthetic crosslinkable/polymerizable resins/lacquers as, e.g., epoxide and polyester ones. So we can not expect that the binder stays soluble for years. At best, only some swelling can be observed. Also I should note that MEK is not a very good solvent of such resins with many polar groups. Dimethylformamide (and other strongly polar aprotic solvents) is apparently a better choice.

 

[leftysergeant]

I use linseed oil to form a refractory shell on my cast thermite charges. That way, you can duck tape them to a vertical column.

 

[Oystein]

I would like to note that if, e.g., linseed oil was used as a binder in any "red material", we can not expect that would stay soluble, it polymerizes when in contact with air (whether for purpose or not). I remember btw that in old times we used linseed oil together with a hemp rope for steel plumbing connections in our house. After several years, we were not able to release these connections in any way since linseed oil was already extremely rigid and insoluble. This is also observed with other such seed oils and of course it is a normal/desired property of many synthetic crosslinkable/polymerizable resins/lacquers as, e.g., epoxide and polyester ones. So we can not expect that the binder stays soluble for years. At best, only some swelling can be observed. Also I should note that MEK is not a very good solvent of such resins with many polar groups. Dimethylformamide (and other strongly polar aprotic solvents) is apparently a better choice.

# oysteinbookmark
(This means that your post contains information that I find valuable for my personal interests, and that I have not seen before. I write that word under quotes so I can search for the posts I consider the most valuable to me.)

 

[Ivan Kminek]

I use linseed oil to form a refractory shell on my cast thermite charges. That way, you can duck tape them to a vertical column.

? (Sorry, I have no idea what are you talking about here, I am a newcomer)

 

[Ivan Kminek]

# oysteinbookmark
(This means that your post contains information that I find valuable for my personal interests, and that I have not seen before. I write that word under quotes so I can search for the posts I consider the most valuable to me.)

Thanks, Oystein To be more specific: Binders as seed oils (without special additives) are usually hardening quite slowly, during days (as all of us can observe when some used plant oil is left on a frying pan). Synthetics like epoxides, polyesters or alkyds can be hardened (crosslinked) quite rapidly, let say during minutes. But even in the cases of binders which were not intended for hardening by means of chemical crosslinking we can not exclude a very slow "post-crosslinking" and, consequently, a gradual loss of a solubility. E.g. (my experience), paints based on nitrocellulose stay soluble for many years, whereas others become insoluble.

 

[leftysergeant]

? (Sorry, I have no idea what are you talking about here, I am a newcomer)

I learned to make several kindsof thermite while I was in the Air Force. One form of cast thermite uses linseed oil as an inhibitor so that it can be placed against a vertical surface. It leaves an unburned shell after the reaction is complete.

THermite that contains linseed oil or any of its polymers has, in effect, become a fire-proof paint.