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My Tungsten Cube (2019)

thume.ca

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Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#181

Post by learc83 »

jacquesm wrote: post #106
dharmab wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like an urban legend. "Ring cracker" tools are widely available, and can be improvised from common tools.

Scene of an emergency: hold still while I figure out how to improvise a ring cracker that can crack a solid tungsten ring without further injury to your finger.

EMTs aren't amputating your finger either. You'd go to the ER and they'd call the surgeon.

They'd also know that you can crack a tungsten ring, so they wouldn't need to do that in the first place.

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#182

Post by WJW »

jacquesm wrote: post #169
6nf wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's videos showing exactly how to do it using vice grip pliers available in any hardware store, it's very easy and takes 20 seconds.

Yes, it is. If you have vice grips handy. Emergencies tend to happen 'just like that', you don't get to prepare ahead of time unless you want to accessorize your tungsten ring with a pair of vice grips in your pocket.

There are many emergencies where innocent bystanders won't have the tools or knowledge to extricate me. I would expect ambulance and/or fire brigade services to have such tools at the ready though, just as how they have the fancy hydraulic press-metal-apart-with-extreme-force tools to get people out of car wrecks.

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#183

Post by WJW »

AndrewOMartin wrote: post #66
SoylentYellow wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised the EMTs did not know how to remove the ring. Squeeze it with locking pliers and it will break into pieces.

We can only pray that all EMTs read your comment such that they may be redeemed.

Out of all humanity, it seems that EMTs are at the low end of the scale for needing to be redeemed.

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#185

Post by BurningFrog »

anonporridge wrote: post #131
BizarroLand wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$9,000 for a 1cm cube. That's "winning the lotto impulse purchase" level for me.

It's not like that money disappears. Just think of it like buying gold bullion. Unlike say, a $9000 motorcycle impulse purchase, a block of raw metal should hold it's inflation adjusted value relatively well for decades and you can sell it whenever to recoup the money.

Metals also survive pretty much anything, including catastrophic fires.

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#186

Post by mdavis6890 »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #80
modeless wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the 4" 40 pound $2,999 one? > WHY? We thought nobody would buy our 17.6lb, 3" tungsten cube. We were so, so wrong

My sister owns two shoe stores in LA. It wasen't till she raised her prices significantly things got going. Wealthy measure value by price. (I don't get it.)

That is not quite it - in a relatively efficient market with numerous transactions, price can be a good indicator of value. Basically: "This store is busy selling lots of shoes, and apparently a bunch of people are buying them, so they must be worth the price."

I do this sometimes with cheaper stuff that I don't know much about. E.g. A shovel or something. I don't know much about shovels, but I know I want a good one. So I will be biased toward the more expensive shovel on the rack, assuming I can afford it. If it wasn't better, then presumably all the people that really know about shovels wouldn't buy it, so then it wouldn't be for sale.

Anyway, the logic here isn't perfect obviously, but still makes reasonable sense and works out okay for stuff you can easily afford and don't know much about.

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#187

Post by falcrist »

paulgerhardt wrote: post #170
fywacro wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :-)

If anyone knows where to get a tungsten cube I would be interested. I’ve wanted one since reading this post a few years ago but every vendor usually sells alloys.

I honestly wouldn't have noticed that the Midwest Tungsten Service products weren't pure tungsten, but when I went back to the amazon page, I found a note from the seller:

>The tungsten sphere is 90% tungsten with nickel/iron for the remainder, the aluminum sphere is 6061 alloy.

This actually seems to apply to most of their products. Not just the spheres.

If you search Amazon for "pure tungsten", you'll find vendors selling cubes that are at least more pure than this vendor's stuff. There are also other items that claim to be high purity tungsten.

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#188

Post by dharmab »

jacquesm wrote: post #106
dharmab wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like an urban legend. "Ring cracker" tools are widely available, and can be improvised from common tools.

Scene of an emergency: hold still while I figure out how to improvise a ring cracker that can crack a solid tungsten ring without further injury to your finger.

EMTs and firefighters usually carry basic tools in their ambulances and trucks. The tools will certainly be at an ER or trauma center.

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#189

Post by daerhan »

paulgerhardt wrote: post #170
fywacro wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :-)

If anyone knows where to get a tungsten cube I would be interested. I’ve wanted one since reading this post a few years ago but every vendor usually sells alloys.

This vendor sells cubes of various sizes that they claim to be 99.95% tungsten - https://luciteria.com/metal-cubes/tungsten-cube. I have one of the 1cc cubes and it seems to be of good quality. They also sell a lot of other exotic elements.

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#190

Post by alasdair_ »

gfody wrote: post #105

I wish someone made a standard 608 (fidget spinner, skateboard, etc.) deep-groove ball bearing entirely out of Tungsten - it would be the ultimate desk trinket and I bet it would have the longest and most satisfying spins.

Foreverspin make spinning tops out of all kinds of interesting materials including tungsten.
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