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My Tungsten Cube (2019)

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Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#141

Post by dekhn »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #82
dekhn wrote: post #39

i bought a CNC so I could make my own cubes. It's very nice. I often make objects just so I can hold them later.

Wait.... are you being sarcastic? Or did you really spend $5,000 on a machine for your hobby of making cubes just so you can hold them? If you are serious, I think we could be friends. Maybe I should make a subreddit for people like us?

I spent $2K (X-carve). I've made spheres, cubes, boxes, various 3D shapes I bought on Ebay, and keep the parts around (they're nice to look at as well as hold during long meetings). A cube with filleted edges is particularly nice, although you can make that easily with just a table saw and a sander. If you sand it enough, it can be unbelievably smooth. or you can make it rough.

note that I'm mainly doing wood because the x-carve can't carve aluminum easily (no idea about tungsten). If I could make metal cubes, I would.

The actual hobby here is all sorts of wood projects, like tables, arts, etc, but I still make small geometry pieces all the time because I enjoy 3D graphical objects in the real world.

I mainly read https://www.reddit.com/r/CNC/ but you may also find this interesting: https://www.instructables.com/Turners-Cube-Manual-Machine/

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#142

Post by ISL »

BizarroLand wrote: post #128
ISL wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are in this situation, don't cut the ring, crack it. Pure tungsten, and some alloys like tungsten-carbide, is somewhat brittle. https://www.larsonjewelers.com/can-tungsten-rings-be-cutoff

I originally had a tungsten ring when I got married and managed to shatter both it and its replacement within a year. Terrible for rings, just go with silver if you want or need a cheap wedding ring.

My choice was titanium, which I used to make ours. It is (IMHO) among the finest of all materials for the job.

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#143

Post by kragen »

MgB2 wrote: post #129

I used to work with tungsten carbide cubes during my PhD thesis. They're used in multianvil high-pressure synthesis. With the right setup you can reach almost 20 GPa of pressure. Not as much as with diamond anvil cells, but you have more reasonable sample sizes (a few milligrams). And thats still like the pressure pretty deep into Earth's mantle. I also used the opportunity to snap a neat picture of a polished WC cub…

Oh, that's really interesting! I guess the energy is storred in them because they underwent some plastic deformation in the press? Is that from plasticity of the WC itself or from a sintering aid such as cobalt? I would have thought pure WC would have no plasticity at all at room temperature or anything nearby.

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#144

Post by brundolf »

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…

> Of all of my desk toys/models/prints it's generated the most talk amongst friends and coworkers.

I'm not joking when I say one of the things I miss most about office life is decorating my desk with objects and having people react to them. Even before Delta, when things were opening back up, my office was doing "hot desks" which meant you didn't really get to personalize your space. It's understandable, but a bummer.

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#145

Post by fywacro »

MgB2 wrote: post #129

I used to work with tungsten carbide cubes during my PhD thesis. They're used in multianvil high-pressure synthesis. With the right setup you can reach almost 20 GPa of pressure. Not as much as with diamond anvil cells, but you have more reasonable sample sizes (a few milligrams). And thats still like the pressure pretty deep into Earth's mantle. I also used the opportunity to snap a neat picture of a polished WC cub…

FYI, tungsten carbide (tungsten + carbon) is a different substance from the pure metal tungsten... They have very different physical properties.

But I do appreciate your story about tungsten carbide, too :-)

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#146

Post by trhway »

around the time of elementary school i had a ~15cm diameter steel (or may be something harder given where it came from - i didn't pay attention what it was made of, it was just pretty heavy) ball from a ball bearing from a driveshaft of a Navy ship. While not tungsten, it was still pretty great toy. We even played soccer using it - the style is very different as just strongly hitting it with or trying to abruptly stop with a foot would only cause pain to the foot, and the ball also would naturally not fly far :)

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#149

Post by ISL »

jacquesm wrote: post #140
ISL wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDM can cheese-wire right through blocks of tungsten.

That I readily believe, but to face a sheet is a different matter, which I believe was the application the OP intended. You can also cut tungsten with water jets loaded with abrasives, I've seen a 2" thick block cut like that, it was quite impressive. But that won't get you a surface. You'd need to start with a sheet of the right thickness.

True. I bet a quick call to Rembar would put you on your way to a source if you just need sheet.

Tungsten foil/sheet isn't that hard to come by.

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#150

Post by chromaton »

jacquesm wrote: post #140
ISL wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDM can cheese-wire right through blocks of tungsten.

That I readily believe, but to face a sheet is a different matter, which I believe was the application the OP intended. You can also cut tungsten with water jets loaded with abrasives, I've seen a 2" thick block cut like that, it was quite impressive. But that won't get you a surface. You'd need to start with a sheet of the right thickness.

Cut it off the end of a bar.
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