I have tested a gear box for many hours. Where the gears are made of a hardened steel alloy and the housing is 7000 series aluminum. Now I drained the gear box of its gear oil and I need to weight the metal shavings in that oil. So I can put in fresh oil and test the gear box for a couple more hours. And then do the test all over again. Can anyone give me a good idea as to how I can accurately separate the oil with out losing the tiny pieces of metal? I thought I could filter the oil through coffee filters then give it a thorough cleaning with hot water and soap, then drying it in the oven. Can anyone tell me if this is a good idea or can you come up with a better one?
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Standard lab approach is vacuum filtration: Get a Buchner funnel and filter paper sized to capture the smallest particles you care to measure. Now:
- Weigh filter.
- Place filter in funnel and wet with solvent.
- Connect funnel to vacuum filter flask.
- Turn on vacuum.
- Pour sample into funnel.
- Continue to rinse sample with a volatile solvent until it is clean. For rinsing off oil you could use acetone.
- Wait a few moments for solvent to evaporate.
- Weigh filter with sample.
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