Magnetic oven wire

If its sticking to a magnet its ferrous

It could be high temp nickel wire. I have seen it used in applications like that.

Originally Posted by freonjoe

It could be high temp nickel wire. I have seen it used in applications like that.

Good call freonjoe, I've also seen nickel wire used in commercial as well high end consumer appliances. Rip an old toaster apart you'll find nickel wire attached to the elements.

Nickel wire is far superior to copper, with copper wire the ends tend to overheat creating loose connections and an oxide coating inhibiting conductivity.

Originally Posted by FLScrapperGuy1

I scrapped an old double oven too, from the 80's, and I think I encountered this wire too. Tons of copper wire. Anyhow, this wire you guys speak of freaked me out, because when I removed the wire - and the oven had one wire for each oven - I balled it up and I noticed it sparked and smoked on its own. Not sure why it sparked but I watched it and it sure did.. over and over for days. Odd stuff man. I tossed it in with my ferrous scrap, I'd hate to find out it was nickle.. that sounds expensive.

The wire that sparked and smoked was actually a capillary tube connected the rheostat a copper bulb on the oven end filled with perhaps sodium. The sodium melts and expands when heated pushing against a diaphragm inside the rheostat, by adjusting he rheostat for a higher oven temperature a spring inside exerts more pressure on the diaphragm creating more resistance for the melted sodium thus bringing the oven temperature upwards before the electrical contacts inside open breaking the circuit at the set temperature.

When the sodium cools it shrinks inside the capillary tube allowing the electrical contacts to once again complete a circuit, this constant cycling keeps the oven at the predetermined temperature. Oven rheostats are pre adjusted at the factory but may also be serviced adjusted for correction in the shop.

When sodium is exposed to the humidity in the air or water it takes fire, when I was a kid I used to cut the stem open on sodium cooled valves found on some industrial engines just to get the sodium to experiment with.

IT is nichrome should go for stainless or better.

Uses

Nichrome is used in a very wide variety of devices where electric heating is required.

Nichrome is used in the explosives and fireworks industry as a bridgewire in electric ignition systems, such as electric matches and model rocket igniters.

Industrial and hobby hot-wire foam cutters use nichrome wire.

Nichrome wire is commonly used in ceramic as an internal support structure to help some elements of clay sculptures hold their shape while they are still soft. Nichrome wire is used for its ability to withstand the high temperatures that occur when clay work is fired in a kiln.

Nichrome wire can be used as an alternative to platinum wire for flame testing by colouring the non-luminous part of a flame to detect cations such as sodium, potassium, copper, calcium etc.
The alloy tends to be expensive due to its high nickel content. Distributor pricing is typically indexed to market prices for nickel.

Nichrome may be also used as the coils of electronic cigarettes for vaping.

Thanks to Wiki for the info;

Originally Posted by ChildhoodDream

Would the wire heating coils/elements in small electric heaters and other small appliances be made of the same type wire or is it a much different metals content?

As I have many hundreds of small consumer items such as electric space heaters, toasters, hair dryers, pop corn makers and such that are best parted out if not worth more then scrap I have wondered about keeping the wire elements from these items separated if it has a possible value that is much more then the lower value metals.

I realize that it would take hundreds of small appliances to end up with any weight in element wire. Even if I don't part out these items myself it is good to know what might be in them of a good value. A bit like most didn't know about what was in a catalytic converter until it became popular NEW$.

usually yes, but to find a yard that will recognize it as such and pay properlyt is another story