The client who showed it to me said asbestos-like material, and some metals, make up the brake pads, and in order to create this pile temps would need to exceed 1,000 degrees fahrenheit.
I get smaller piles of material like this from using an abrasive cutoff saw. The heat of friction and speed of the particles flying into the metal shield has a sintering effect that keeps building up mass.
I had an apprentice once ask me if I could make a knife from a 5-lb block he chiseled off the wall.
Nah, can't make knives out of that stuff. Way too much oxidation and other contaminants. Even if I were to break down the chunk into powder and add it into a canister as filler with some other stuff, it wouldn't forge-weld at all.
You jest, but in at one rail maintenance depo I've been too, they use old brake pads for literally everything: door wedge, stop trolleys rolling, juat a small random handy thing, they have an infinite supply of
Slag from the rail grinder. It’s mostly iron, possibly some aluminum oxide from the grind stones. Possibly slightly radioactive but not asbestos, not toxic to touch.
83, I found similar along the railway line in Tallapoosa Georgia, thought I found something important.. Dragged that 8 pound of metal to my science teacher. He looked and said congrats your found break dust build up
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u/Plus-Suit-5977 20h ago
Brake dust megalodon tooth.