On the "melted steel"

[T.A.M.]

I would LOVE TO SEE, the device that not only allows you to administer the chemical so that the reaction is horiziontal, but a device that is also able to limit the administration of said chemicals to the point of only "weakening" the steel, rather than cutting through completely.

TAM

 

[SpaceMonkeyZero]

You do know I am not a truther don't you Space Monkey?

I know... I wasn't referring to you. I was making a point that no matter what we say to debunk them, they just grow more fervent... and illogical in their claims.

 

[~enigma~]

I know... I wasn't referring to you. I was making a point that no matter what we say to debunk them, they just grow more fervent... and illogical in their claims.

NP...just don't let it happen again

 

[T.A.M.]

I know... I wasn't referring to you. I was making a point that no matter what we say to debunk them, they just grow more fervent... and illogical in their claims.

NP...just don't let it happen again

Yes, or he will be forced to beat you to a pulp with his rubber cyberhammer.

TAM

 

[~enigma~]

Yes, or he will be forced to beat you to a pulp with his rubber cyberhammer.

TAM

T.A.M....I'm dissapointed. You should know I don't have a rubber cyberhammer. It is Mjolnir...

 

[plumjam]

Anyone just happen to have a link to the supposed testimony (or some other reference I can directly consult) from firefighters that's supposed to reveal that they directly witnessed molten steel in the basements of the towers? Part of me is thinking "misrepresentation", "misinterpretation", "word cherry picking", or some other divorcing from context that conspiracy fantasists normally do, but I want to view the same material they're taking that claim from before I draw my own conclusion. I know I can search 9/11 Transcripts for that info, but that's a lot of stuff to go through! And I have a real life to live.

I keep seeing the claim, but it's always unreferenced. My own memories are about the reports of molten metal pools found weeks to months after the collapse, which contraindicates thermite. Aside from the 9/11 Mysteries (and other) videos that showed the molten metal, assumably aluminum, flowing down the sides of the towers, I don't directly recall any actual testimony stating that it was directly witnessed in the buildings before the collapse.

If no one has any sources, I guess I can wade through the witness testimony myself [/grudging attitude ], but I admit, I'm hoping for a friendly assist from the gang here.

I do remember seeing a group of 3 or 4 firefighters together talking about it and describing large pools of molten metal under the debris. Unfortunately I don't remember which video it was on. Will be on Youtube somewhere.

 

[Alt+F4]

This firefighter describes pulling out "red hot" debris six weeks after 9/11:



This firefighter describes "molten steel" but you don't know if he's referring to 9/11:



Let's assume for arguments sake that everyone in NYC saw molten metal in the pile for weeks after 9/11, how is that a connection to a CD?

 

[Jonnyclueless]

Is this grounds for a stundie? I just read this claim on Myspace in reference to the collapse itself preventing there from being any molten metal:

"Okay, I will do this very slow for you as I know you are not very smart.

Thousands of tons of debris would be at a much lower temp than any molten metal. Since that is the case it would cause the molten metal to cool, thus causing it to harden. Are you following me so far?

There should not have been any heat signatures visible from space weeks after the collapses as there were not any real fires burning in the first place that could possibly melt metal or keep the metal molten. "

 

[R.Mackey]

Why do you insist that if thermite was used, it was used to melt steel? It's like a disease.

Couldn't thermite have been used to heat-weaken steel? Hello!

Oh, for pity's sake.

The title of this thread is "On the 'Melted Steel.'" I don't, as a matter of practice, insist that the only application of thermite is to "melt steel." However, this thread presupposes that as a condition.

Additionally, if you propose that thermite was not used to melt steel, but only to heat it, you have quite an interesting engineering challenge ahead of you. Thermite can really only heat other objects through direct contact. Thermite creates, by necessity, molten iron. That's what it does. You set up a metallic redox reaction, and you get molten iron. That molten iron, in contact with whatever it is you're messing with, is what does the work.

So somehow, this "thermite" of yours, has to transfer enough heat to steel to weaken large quantities of it -- but not to melt any.

How is that supposed to work?

You don't have weeks and months to slowly build up an equilibrium temperature, you know.

There's no way to avoid melting steel, if you use enough thermite to make any difference at all.

Everything I've just said holds equally true for any variant as well.

NIST FAQ #12 says NIST researchers estimated that 0.13 lbs of thermite would have been required to heat 1 lb of WTC steel to 700 degrees Celsius (the temperature at which steel weakens substantially).

If demolition planners set about to minimize energy requirements, and heat-weakening worked, why would they waste energy melting steel?

If you somehow figure out the heat distribution problem, then yes, it takes less thermite to heat steel than it did to melt that same steel. But you are still left with an enormous volume of melted iron. Oops, there wasn't any found. Guess there wasn't any thermite. QED.

One would almost think that you and STJ/Jones were working together to propagate the "thermite = cutting/melting" meme or emotionally-potent oversimplification.

Sherlock Holmes you ain't.

THERMITE WAS NOT USED TO MELT OR CUT STEEL.

THERMITE WAS USED TO HEAT-WEAKEN STEEL.


Boy it hard to get a person to see that which they are paid not to see.

Paid, huh. Wow.

I wouldn't have bothered replying to your insanity at all, except for one thing -- it's not every day that some nut who calls himself Max Photon, by choice, resorts to such an absurd cartoon epithet:

What's with the Mackey Mouse thinking?

That just might win you the gold in the Unintentional Humor Olympics.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

Let's assume for arguments sake that everyone in NYC saw molten metal in the pile for weeks after 9/11, how is that a connection to a CD?

That's my whole point: If the molten metal was witnessed days to weeks after the collapse, rather than on the day itself, it couldn't be connected to CD, not in any reasonable way. Thermite would've burned out on the order of seconds to minutes. Explosives wouldn't have caused the metal to melt to begin with. The more likely explanation would be that the metal became molten from the heat of fires continuing to burn under rubble. Recall, that rubble created a crude yet effective oven-like environment, which was really the point the firefighter was making in the first video: "Hey, look how hot it is under all that stuff!"

I guess a conspiracy fantasist could make the argument that the metal was already molten when it arrived there under the rubble, but then the whole sighting of molten metal doesn't become proof of CD, it merely becomes an observation that must be explained. Making that argument concedes the rubble fires were sufficient to melt metal, so therefore use of thermite would still have to be established, and proof provided that the metal was already molten before it settled under the burning debris. Minus that proof, thermite is simply an unsupported claim arrived at by inductive reasoning, not evidence. And that goes back to the stories of firefighters supposedly sighting molten metal in the basements before the towers collapsed, the video you post being one example of this. But the problem, as you note, is that the video is not sufficient: It does not state whether the firefighter was referring to 9/11. Heck, it's not clear that he's talking about the Twin Towers complex at all, whether on September 11th or some other day (although I concede that the mens' demeanor suggested they were discussing some sort of terrible tragedy, of which 9/11 is a leading candidate). Anyway, was that firefighter indeed referring to a sighting of molten metal made in the basement, as the truthers claim? It's simply not established in that video - there's zero reference to where they sighted the metal supposedly flowing like lava. Yet that's the exact claim conspiracy fantasist sites make when posting it, that the firemen spotted it in the towers.

I was hoping there were better "primary" sources for that claim, but if that's, then I'm even more disappointed in conspiracy fantasists than before. That's a lousy primary source, primarily because it doesn't establish location or time. Anyone have any other original sources for this claim?

Ps. Thanks for the vid links.