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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;KennyMac, post: 883642, member: 23222&quot;]Oddly enough, there is a piece of testing equipment out there...actually, there are several, but for this purpose I&#039;ll describe the one I&#039;ve used quite a bit.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>There is an inspection product that is on the market called a &quot;Niton&quot;.....It looks very similar to an old Star Trek &quot;Phazer&quot;, but a little larger. This is used in a testing proceedure called &quot;Positive Material Indentification&quot;...or, PMI for short.</p><p>The older versions of this piece of equipment used two radioactive isotopes (generally Fe55/Cs137), that bombarded an article with gamma radiation. The return backscatter was broken it down into it&#039;s most basic forms, and the microprocessor recognized the material content and the total amount of percentage of material in any given article being tested.</p><p>So..you would take the piece being tested, place the tip of the &quot;barrel&quot; against that material, pull the trigger, and a few seconds later a complete list of what that test piece was made of..and the percentage of them.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>It would show on the screen the percentages of Chromium, Nickel, Steel, Moly, Iconell,etc, etc, etc, then it would tell you what the material was trying to be.... different types of stainless steel, 9 chrome, 5 chrome, 1-1/2 chrome 1/4 moly, vanadium, tungsten, ...if it had mass, the Niton would tell you what it was.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Nowadays the Niton is used in conjunction with x-ray...yep, the little phazer now has one of the smallest x-ray tubes on the market. The basic process of inspection is the same..the technology is going forward.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>So...what does all of this mean?...You can &quot;teach&quot; this equipment to recognize certain specific materials, and ignore all the others.</p><p><i><u>If you are simply looking for gold, and want your answer in about 3 seconds, you need this inspection tool</u></i>.</p><p>Or, you could drag all your stuff to a jewelry shop and let the guy put acid on it.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>I&#039;ve done Industrial Nuclear Radiography for alot of years...instead of an x-ray tube or machine, we use radioactive isotopes (Iridium 192 and Cobalt60) to take x-rays of components, structures, and welds.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>I also do Phased Array Ultrasonic testing (PAUT), Compressional/Longitudnal Ultrasonic testing for corrosion analysis (UT), Magnetic Particle Testing (MT..wet and dry), Penetrant testing (PT). Alternating Current Field Measurements (ACFM), and a few more methods of Non-Destructive Testing.</p><p>But we do these inspections while rapelling from ropes.</p><p>Yep, certified in inspection through the American Society for Non Destructive Testing (ASNT), and certified in industrial rapelling/high angle rescue through the International Rope Access Trade Association.</p><p>I&#039;ve got my Level 2 certs in every one of those methods, and I only needed 40 more hours on the rops to get my Level 3....but I broke my back....thats a story for another day.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>I&#039;ll try and post one or two pictures of the Niton..[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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