Hello All, I replied to another post in another section and it reminded me of this bit of information. One of the other fellows posted a method for checking for magnesium, he said to file shavings from the part, put them into a pile and apply an oxy-acetylene flame to them, if they sparked and burned the material was likely magnesium. The method that I typically use requires silver nitrate, you apply a drop of this solution to the part to be tested, if the droplet turns the material black it is likely magnesium, if the droplet stays clear it is probably aluminum. One variation to this would be the possibility that the material is pot metal, it can also turn black when silver nitrate is applied, the pot metal part would be considerably heavier than the magnesium piece and will help to differentiate between pot metal and magnesium. Regards, aevald