I used an aluminum tent stake to temporarily stake a radial wire to the
ground during some testing I was doing this summer.

After the test, I forgot to take it out of the ground.

Two weeks later I noticed it and reached down to pull it out of the ground.
I pulled it out easily and was amazed to see only the top half of the stake
in my hand. The thing had corroded almost all the way through right at
ground level and the bottom half was still stuck in the ground.

How could it have completely corroded through an aluminum tent stake in just
two weeks in my dirt?

Al W6LX

Al Lorona wrote:
I used an aluminum tent stake to temporarily stake a radial wire to the
ground during some testing I was doing this summer.

After the test, I forgot to take it out of the ground.

Two weeks later I noticed it and reached down to pull it out of the ground.
I pulled it out easily and was amazed to see only the top half of the stake
in my hand. The thing had corroded almost all the way through right at
ground level and the bottom half was still stuck in the ground.

How could it have completely corroded through an aluminum tent stake in just
two weeks in my dirt?


I think you accidentally made a battery.

- 73 de Mike KB3EIA -

In article ,
"Al Lorona" wrote:

I used an aluminum tent stake to temporarily stake a radial wire to the
ground during some testing I was doing this summer.

After the test, I forgot to take it out of the ground.

Two weeks later I noticed it and reached down to pull it out of the ground.
I pulled it out easily and was amazed to see only the top half of the stake
in my hand. The thing had corroded almost all the way through right at
ground level and the bottom half was still stuck in the ground.

How could it have completely corroded through an aluminum tent stake in just
two weeks in my dirt?

Al W6LX

In a nutshell, you either made yourself a crude battery, or you
electroplated the dirt the stake was driven into with a layer of
aluminum. Precisely which one is the reality depends on, among other
things, soil pH, the material of your radial and whether or not your
radial was electrically hot (even if only a little) for whatever reason.
if I were a betting man, I'd put my money on "battery".

(See also "sacrificial anode" under the "boating" category)

--
Don Bruder - - If your "From:" address isn't on my whitelist,
or the subject of the message doesn't contain the exact text "PopperAndShadow"
somewhere, any message sent to this address will go in the garbage without my
ever knowing it arrived. Sorry... http://www.sonic.net/~dakidd for more info

Thanks for your replies. I should have made clear that I only left the stake
in the ground. There was no radial, nothing else connected to it for those
two weeks.

My soil is pretty good (fertile) soil. It's loamy, dry, and dark. I've never
measured the conductivity of it. It didn't take too much to drive it into
the ground, just a few whacks of my hammer.

Weird!

Al W6LX