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My Tungsten Cube (2019)

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Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#311

Post by justsomeuser »

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…

Blocks of magnesium are not fire hazards are they?

Magnesium only ignites easily when in thin strips?

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#312

Post by detaro »

justsomeuser wrote: post #311
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…

Blocks of magnesium are not fire hazards are they? Magnesium only ignites easily when in thin strips?

yeah, needs a strong heat source if it's a block. E.g. it's tricky to ignite a NeXTCube even with a blowtorch: https://simson.net/ref/1993/cubefire.html

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#313

Post by zamadatix »

justsomeuser wrote: post #311
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…

Blocks of magnesium are not fire hazards are they? Magnesium only ignites easily when in thin strips?

"easily" is a relative term, it'll absolutely go up in a glorious blaze among any other actual fire but it won't set off at the slightest spark like fire starting powder or strips.

It's also a relatively pure sample, very soft, not an alloy like you'd see with magnesium casings. The block is actually a little deformed just from dropping it on the floor once.

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#314

Post by relaxing »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #294
kadoban wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I've wondered, exactly how easy would it be to find a gold puddle after a fire anyway? I mean it's not going to vaporize or walk off on its own, but is it just going to be a little solidified glob there to pick up or what?

Yes, it might flow around in the fire but it would be in the same area. A metal detector would be the fastest way to find it. Likely less time to find it solidified than looking for jewelry on a beach. Certainly less time than mining the gold. I've found aluminum globs under fires that had cans or trashed roofing thrown in. Pretty clean, since nearly everything floats on it, and easy to spot in ashes.

Aluminum melts around 1200F. That’s a really hot fire! Was it a windy day?

(Lead, on the other hand, melts at half that.)

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#315

Post by jacquesm »

kragen wrote: post #245
jacquesm wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That Fresnel reflector idea sounds super interesting. Has anybody tried that?

Not that I've heard of; it's possible that someone tried it and it doesn't work for some reason that isn't obvious to me, and then they didn't publish their negative result. I published the idea in 02019 in https://dercuano.github.io/notes/mechano-optical-vector-disp... , but I haven't actually tried it, and not many people read Dercuano, in part because most of it is ideas I thought up but haven't tried. Reading I'v…

I need another life ;) Seriously though, this is worth pursuing. But I've more or less decided to dedicate the rest of my life to music and to start this all up again would require a small fortune and a very large dedication in time. Still. Tempting.

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#316

Post by hexa22 »

Doxin wrote: post #300
SilverRed wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a few of the non toxic ones. I like titanium most since it has a decent weight and doesn't make my hands smell like copper. Some of them will oxidize and if you want to stop that you can coat them in a clear resin. I wouldn't touch lead even with the resin coating as I wouldn't trust it to not chip off.

I can hardly see lead chipping, it's much too soft for that. In general handling lead in its solid state is pretty safe. It's mostly lead dust you'd need to worry about. In any case washing your hands after handling lead is pretty much a foolproof way to be safe. It doesn't absorb through the skin.

You wouldn’t want to be handling it like a desk toy..

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#317

Post by tastyfreeze »

relaxing wrote: post #314
tastyfreeze wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it might flow around in the fire but it would be in the same area. A metal detector would be the fastest way to find it. Likely less time to find it solidified than looking for jewelry on a beach. Certainly less time than mining the gold. I've found aluminum globs under fires that had cans or trashed roofing thrown in. Pretty clean, since nearly everything floats on it, and easy to spot in ashes.

Aluminum melts around 1200F. That’s a really hot fire! Was it a windy day? (Lead, on the other hand, melts at half that.)

Once the core of the fire is mostly charcoal temperatures can climb up to 1100C. It doesn't have to be windy or even a large fire. Just need to be burning charcoal and not evaporating water or burning off volatiles.

The fires I have found aluminum globs in were long burning beach campfires and a bonfire to burn brush(big fire). The beach campfires were moderately sized but they certainly weren't bonfires built with 6-8 foot logs.

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#318

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

dekhn wrote: post #141
ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Love the Turners Cube, can that be done with wood?

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#319

Post by DavidAdams »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #277
toiletaccount wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i read something about a guy shattering his tungsten wedding band on his wedding night, after deciding that slapping his hands on concrete was how you're supposed to dance. professional advice: don't use an exotic metal for your wedding band. some fire departments can't cut it if your ring finger swells up.

Or you could just not wear rings at all. I'm an EMT and the only trauma injury that gives me the creeps is degloving. Happens e.g. when somebody falls off a ladder and their ring gets caught on a nail on the way down. Don't google it.

I have a very cool ring made of tungsten carbide and carbon fiber. But I stopped wearing it precisely because of hearing stories like this.

Re: My Tungsten Cube (2019)

#320

Post by DavidAdams »

sbierwagen wrote: post #200
mbreese wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To save people some time clicking through... A 10mm cube of Iridium weighs ~21.9g. And from this source, costs $9000. From the same source, a single gram is only $275. This means that due to the difficulty in working with this very dense metal, the cost of turning the Iridium into a cube is nearly $3000 (on top of the ~$6000 for the metal itself)!

Theodore Gray has a story about visiting a company with an electron beam furnace with Oliver Sacks to turn a pile of loose iridium beads into a bar: https://theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Stories/077.x3/index.... Some of the cost isn't just from using the equipment, but because you'll have some evaporation from melting in vacuum. He says at the start of the article that Sacks started with a kilogram of beads: >After…

That story reinforces everything that I've learned about Oliver Sacks. What a cool dude.
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