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My Tungsten Cube (2019)

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Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#91

Post by divbzero »

zamadatix wrote: post #73

I got one as well, around the same time actually, as a gift. I also fell into a strange fascination with it and find it fun to hold in the exact same ways as the author. Folks tend to get me 1" element (or sometimes non elemental but interesting in another way) cubes as gifts now which works out as it gives a great range of price to choose from while maintaining surprise with the guarantee I'll enjoy it. I've had my…

For context, iridium is probably the densest material you’d want for a paperweight [1] but it’s rarer and more expensive than tungsten or platinum.

[1]: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-heaviest-metal-I-can-legal...

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#92

Post by sbierwagen »

probably_wrong wrote: post #53
ISL wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Osmium is not good for you. If tungsten isn't dense-enough for you, consider platinum or rhenium.

1kg of rhenium costs $265 while 1kg of platinum costs $30K. I'm not saying one is a better choice than the other, but I know which one I'd get.

Where are you finding rhenium for $265 a kilo? Lowest I found in a few minutes of googling is $1540.20: https://www.amazon.com/Rhenium-Metal-99-8-Pure/dp/B08FCX61QD...

(Description says it's "great for melting". Good luck with that!)

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#93

Post by lxe »

_2d30 wrote: post #84
lxe wrote: post #77

I hope I'm not too late to the cube measuring party. My friend gave me the 4 inch one for my birthday, and it's been a source of constant amazement ever since: https://midwesttungsten.com/tungsten-cube/?sku=40400-03914B&... It weighs over 40 lbs and it's almost impossible to lift with one hand. I haven't smashed anything with it yet

Generous friend at $3K!

He's a TechLead at a FAANG company

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#94

Post by jacquesm »

yrral wrote: post #60

William Osman had a video where he "experimented" with a huge tungsten cube. It's quite entertaining. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O551__3ppM Another interesting fact about tungsten is that its density is 99.75% of that of gold. So essentially you can model how heavy something is if it was made out of pure gold with tungsten. Additionally, apparently gold counterfeiters sometimes put tungsten inside of gold bars…

That is a terrible video.

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#95

Post by ksec »

I wonder if you could mill a dumbbell out of it, so even the handle itself is made of Tungsten. You would have a fairly normal looking 10Lb dumbbell that weight more than 10Kg or 26Lb. Everyone coming in the house would always (somehow) pick up these Dumbbell.......

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#96

Post by tiborsaas »

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #69

I didn't realize that tungsten was as heavy as gold. I always wanted to to hold a gold bar for the same reasons. When I see a picture of someone holding a gold bar, I always wonder if they are struggling much more than apparent because of the insane density (almost 20x that of same volume of water, 3x that of steel). I can't afford the $600K for a gold bar however.

Then you'd find this interesting too: there's quite a lot of gold stolen or faked like this:

"Exclusive: Fake-branded bars slip dirty gold into world markets"

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gold-swiss-fakes-exclusiv...

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#97

Post by jacquesm »

frankus wrote: post #90

Tungsten is about the only minimally-hazardous substance I could find that could max out the 70-pound weight limit on a (US) Priority Mail flat-rate envelope, but that would be an expensive stunt.

Not only that, machining that piece would take ages and wear out a fortune in tooling.

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#98

Post by mhb »

bob1029 wrote: post #72
nimbius wrote: post #37

I work sometimes in a metal shop where Tungsten alloys abound. This might be the stupidest hn post I've ever read. You bought a piece of metal at vastly inflated prices for a very narrow range of performance over a specific set of conditions. Nothing more. Being the hardest isn't being the best. Tungsten is extraordinarily brittle. A hard drop on concrete could crack it. I'd also argue without a MA (metal analysis or…

> This might be the stupidest hn post I've ever read. I don't know... Seems your own post has missed the mark pretty sharply as well. To me, it was abundantly clear that the purpose of this tungsten cube is not for engineering or practical utility.

Yes, but it seems like the Pet Rock for this crowd. It's entertaining to give it a heft, but I doubt if it will see as much daily use as his amortization projection suggests.

I think a better desk objet is a Curta calculator.

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#99

Post by sbelskie »

jacquesm wrote: post #89
Bud wrote: post #86

My wedding ring is tungsten; my wife and I decided to go with, shall we say, non-standard metals for our wedding bands to keep the costs down. I got her the usual gold/diamond sort of ring for engagement. We figured we could always get platinum or gold rings later. I've found that I really love it, and now we may not replace mine at all. It's hilariously heavy and has a nice brushed finish.

Good luck cutting it off in an emergency.

You can easily shatter it with a vice grip or locking wrench, and with the rise of tungsten wedding bands EMTs and hospitals are more and more equipped for this.

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#100

Post by kragen »

ScaleneTriangle wrote: post #48
nimbius wrote: post #37

I work sometimes in a metal shop where Tungsten alloys abound. This might be the stupidest hn post I've ever read. You bought a piece of metal at vastly inflated prices for a very narrow range of performance over a specific set of conditions. Nothing more. Being the hardest isn't being the best. Tungsten is extraordinarily brittle. A hard drop on concrete could crack it. I'd also argue without a MA (metal analysis or…

Every material more dense than tungsten costs more than tungsten, and the same goes for anything that even close close. Only thing you need to do to determine if you were screwed or not is measure the density. Since it's a cube the only thing you need is a ruler and a scale. As for the value to a consumer. That comes almost entirely from its density not its hardness, something you'd know if you read OP. As for the "v…

What are the materials with similar, but lower, densities? WC, I guess, at 15.63 g/cc; what else?

Apparently wholesale tungsten costs US$30/kg, which is about one fourth the US$130 cost the guy paid. I'd think either wire EDM or wire ECM would be able to dice tungsten into featureless cubes for a lot less than US$100/kg. Its brittleness wouldn't be a problem.

Also, it could very easily be impure, or even not tungsten at all; lots of people have gotten tricked into buying tungsten-carbide jewelry they thought was tungsten, and tungsten carbide isn't even metal. The Amazon seller says it's actually 5% nickel and iron, though I'm not clear whether it's an alloy or a powder-metallurgy sinter using those metals as sintering aids. Alloys aren't necessarily less dense than their densest pure component, so impurities might not even lower the density. X-ray fluorescence would be a cheap way to detect heavy-metal impurities (though not, say, boron, carbon, or nitrogen).

The guy is excited about how it's durable and will last for a long time. I think he will be disappointed if it really is so brittle that he chips the corner off by dropping it on the floor. Probably the nickel and iron will prevent that.

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