[HN Gopher] My Tungsten Cube (2019)
___________________________________________________________________
My Tungsten Cube (2019)
Author : defaulty
Score : 159 points
Date : 2021-08-26 18:33 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thume.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (thume.ca)
| duderific wrote:
| I kind of got the gold bug after the 2008-9 crash and bought a
| few gold coins. Even holding just an ounce of gold, you notice
| how much more substantial it is than say, a "silver" dollar,
| which is the same size but weighs a fraction as much.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| The more accurate title would be "My 95% Tungsten 5% Nickel/Iron
| Cube"
| ScaleneTriangle wrote:
| Calling it a tungsten cube is incredibly accurate. Not very
| precise though.
|
| If you're gonna be pedantic then try to do a good job of it.
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| I have a tungsten cube and some tungsten dice. They're impressive
| to hold, and make a nice satisfying thunk when the dice are
| thrown.
|
| I also have a magnesium cube. Really amazing to compare the
| weights.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| Damn. Midwest Tungsten Service now owes 'defaulty' a nice little
| Thank You card.
|
| If anyone wants to compare, my order ID is 10000107xx ;)
| ryandrake wrote:
| One excellent application of a block of tungsten is as a bucking
| bar for metal riveting. Due to its density, tungsten bars can be
| much smaller than steel ones, easily fitting into your hand, and
| fitting into tight spaces. I've got a number of tungsten bars and
| use them almost 100% over my steel bars.
| btgeekboy wrote:
| Definitely. The only time I grab one of the steel bars is when
| it's in a particular shape that I don't have in Tungsten.
| Bud wrote:
| 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.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Good luck cutting it off in an emergency.
| sbelskie wrote:
| 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.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The better way to deal with that problem is by not having
| it in the first place.
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| Don't cut, shatter. Grab some channel locks and be free.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Vice grips would probably be your best bet because they
| allow you to adjust the diameter they grip at fairly
| precisely hopefully avoiding further injury to your finger
| (such as: embedded tungsten fragments).
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| I use channellocks, the width setting feature
| accomplishes the same goal, using vice grips takes too
| long. But do you, I suppose.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Dammit, I'm gonna end up buying one of these, aren't I?
| BenoitEssiambre wrote:
| 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.
| tiborsaas wrote:
| 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...
| saba2008 wrote:
| Bank of England museum had a holdable gold bar. And yes, cage
| around it was probably for prevention of body damage, rather
| than theft.
| Cous_Cous_Cous wrote:
| I held a neptunium (20.45 g/cc) sphere once. It was about the
| size of a baseball and I hard the hardest time lifting it. It was
| like lifting a full gallon jug of milk when you think it's empty
| - you apply a force and it doesn't budge. I had to lift it as if
| I was lifting a stack of books to get it off the pedestal.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Uranium is the heaviest naturally occurring on earth, so after
| that on the periodic table (uranium, neptunium, plutonium...)
| things are made with collisions in the lab.
|
| I bet a lot of energy went into creating that sphere...
| the8472 wrote:
| osmium is denser than uranium, the issue is that it's quite
| expensive.
| [deleted]
| ISL wrote:
| Was it warm? That was a rare experience; not many people will
| have done so.
| bsedlm wrote:
| I was expecting to read "I love my precious tungsten cube... _my
| precious_ " in the conclussion
| MisterTea wrote:
| We use blocks like this in our electron beam welders to set the
| beam power, shape and focus on older machines (newer machines use
| a CPU/DSP controlled system). A small 25x25x50mm block sits on an
| adjustable height stand which is set to the height of the weld
| joint. You dial in the settings, hit the block with the beam and
| using the optics, visually check the focus and alignment. Then
| you move to the weld joint and start welding. For big power jobs
| we break out "the brick" which is 75x50x155. Its so heavy you
| need two hands to hold it and sometimes two people to place and
| line it up in the vacuum chamber.
|
| Tungsten is the only metal you can reliably use as our machines
| have beam powers up to 15kW which can precisely deliver an
| enormous amount of heat into a pencil point sized area. Even at
| the common 1-3kW ranges the tungsten instantly liquefies when the
| beam turns on. Ive seen 1/2 thick aluminum turn into a puddle
| while the tungsten just gets a dent in it. You'd think copper is
| a good second bet but nope. Its good at heat sinking but melts
| way quicker.
| e12e wrote:
| > Tungsten is the only metal you can reliably use as our
| machines have beam powers up to 15kW which can precisely
| deliver an enormous amount of heat into a pencil point sized
| area. Even at the common 1-3kW ranges the tungsten instantly
| liquefies when the beam turns on.
|
| I'm sorry - is there an error here? As I understand the rest of
| your comment, you use Tungsten because it does _not_ liquify?
| hutzlibu wrote:
| What are you welding with that thing? And for research or
| production?
| _caw wrote:
| > I struggled a lot with deciding to buy a cube. It felt wrong to
| spend so much money on a featureless hunk of metal.
|
| When I bought my cube, I used it as an exercise to fight back
| against my frugality.
|
| But it wasn't meant to be: it was delivered to the wrong address
| and I received a full refund.
|
| Then my neighbor delivered it to me.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _Then my neighbor delivered it to me_
|
| The only thing that would make this story more perfect is if
| they'd said, "Wow. Heavy. What do you have in there? A cube of
| tungsten?"
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| The cube thwarted your attempts at frugality, so that it could
| spend time with you alone.
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| Better tungsten than bitcoins
| lostlogin wrote:
| > But it wasn't meant to be: it was delivered to the wrong
| address and I received a full refund. Then my neighbor
| delivered it to me.
|
| This must have caused havoc with your frugality.
| changoplatanero wrote:
| I really want to get a gold plated one. The density of tungsten
| is less than 1% different from gold
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Apply some affordable gold leaf on it after thorough solvent
| cleaning, and rub it in so it bonds with the surface.
| minsc__and__boo wrote:
| The Amazon reviews make it seem like this is a meme product.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| I'm sure _someone_ is legitimately buying eg the 55 gallon drum
| of lube.
|
| ...that said, had I organically encountered the tungsten cube
| on Amazon, I absolutely would google around to make sure it
| was, like, real.
| kragen wrote:
| Large animal veterinarians, condom manufacturers, sex shops.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| Sure. The point is that despite the obvious legitimacy of
| the listing, all the reviews are memes.
| frankus wrote:
| 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.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Not only that, machining that piece would take ages and wear
| out a fortune in tooling.
| kragen wrote:
| Below I suggested it would be easy for EDM or ECM. Have I
| been misled?
| jacquesm wrote:
| EDM will take a very long time, you are going to take off a
| few microns per hit, and ECM will likely take either an
| insane amount of power or will take forever across such a
| large surface.
|
| Compared to say machining aluminum or steel you will be
| practicing some patience.
|
| Not necessarily a bad thing to have in the world of metal
| working. ("increased feed speed is not a substitute for bad
| planning")
| kragen wrote:
| I guess I was thinking that ECM would take _less_ power
| per mass on tungsten than on things like steel or copper,
| just because each atom is so much bigger. I 'm not very
| clear on the chemistry, but suppose that we're
| electrolytically oxidizing each tungsten atom into an
| orthotungstate ion by withdrawing two electrons from it,
| with an electrolyte of something like chloric acid or
| sodium hypochlorite so we don't have to pay more
| electrons to free up some oxygens. Then at 100% Faraday
| efficiency we'd cut away 184 daltons of tungsten for
| every two electrons; contrast with iron where you still
| need to withdraw two electrons to get a stable water-
| soluble ferrous ion, but that only buys you 56 daltons of
| metal removal. Even copper, where the cuprous ion only
| costs one electron, you only dissolve 64 daltons.
|
| There's also the issue of electrode potentials: sucking a
| coulomb off your anode at 0.5 volts takes only half a
| joule, but sucking off the same coulomb at 2 volts takes
| 2 joules. I don't understand standard electrode
| potentials well enough to predict what voltage you need
| for efficient tungsten ECM, but on first glance at the
| reference table, it doesn't look particularly bleak. The
| tungsten entries are in the middle of the table, near
| things like lead, tin, and iron, rather than way down on
| the upper east side with hoity-toity mercury and iridium,
| much less out in the ethereal districts where gold and
| ozone dwell.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Per unit of mass yes, but there is rather a lot of mass
| for a given volume. And those are relatively slow
| processes when it comes to dealing with surfaces.
| Perpendicular cuts should be a lot quicker (you only have
| to separate the two sides, in theory one slice of atoms
| would be enough but in practice you'll end up with some
| minimal cutting radius).
|
| Fascinating processes by the way, and the precision that
| you can reach with EDM is insane.
| kragen wrote:
| Hmm, I thought ECM and tap-disintegrating EDM (which is
| not very precise and _does_ use a huge amount of power)
| had pretty astonishingly huge MRRs?
| ISL wrote:
| EDM can cheese-wire right through blocks of tungsten.
| jacquesm wrote:
| 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.
| ISL wrote:
| 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.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I've only ever used bar stock, but I imagine the same
| suppliers would have sheet as well though I can see a
| couple of arched eyebrows when you order that, plus a
| question or two if you are absolutely sure they have your
| order down accurately.
|
| Cost a small fortune too.
| kragen wrote:
| Thank you very much!
| chromaton wrote:
| Cut it off the end of a bar.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Hehe. Very funny :)
| rm445 wrote:
| Bear in mind that we're talking about metallic tungsten here,
| not tungsten carbide (WC). It's a little slow and expensive
| but it can be machined in fairly conventional ways, using
| tungsten carbide tipped tooling.
|
| Tungsten has an enormously high melting point, the normal way
| tungsten parts are produced, for typical industrial purposes
| such as radiation shielding, is sintering (powder + heat +
| pressure) to near-net-shape, finished with a machining pass.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Good point, that is a huge difference in hardness.
| skykooler wrote:
| Gold is also about the same density as tungsten, though it
| would make for an even more expensive stunt at $1.5 million.
| jamesgreenleaf wrote:
| Some of the reviews on these are fantastic:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RZKKKAM6FE5AI
| lqet wrote:
| > Nietzsche once said that a man who has a why can bear almost
| any how. But a man who has a tungsten cube can bear any object
| less dense, and all this talk of why and how becomes
| unnecessary.
| telaandrews wrote:
| I've got a couple similarly-sized hunks of aluminum and vanadium
| that I got from a steel mill tour when in college. I enjoy the
| difference in densities in my hand, but I don't know about $130
| of enjoyment for one more in the set.
| MgB2 wrote:
| 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 cube: https://imgur.com/C2YiMqb.jpg
|
| I always had fun handing them over to students because everyone
| is surprised by the sheer weight of these things.
|
| Tungsten carbide is actually quite dangerous after it has been
| subjected to a lot of stress (Such as being stuck into a 1000 t
| press for a high-pressure synthesis). They have the mean tendecy
| to explode into super sharp pieces when you're not expecting it,
| so wear goggles.
| kragen wrote:
| 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.
| fywacro wrote:
| 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 :-)
| paulgerhardt wrote:
| 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.
| falcrist wrote:
| 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.
| daerhan wrote:
| 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.
| paulgerhardt wrote:
| Perfect, thank you! Looking it seems they both have a
| kilo of pure tungsten in cube form measuring 38.1mm^3 or
| a kilo of tungsten carbide measuring 40mm^3.
| fraa-orolo wrote:
| > FYI
|
| I'd wager they're fully aware of the differences between
| tungsten carbide and pure tungsten, having done a doctorate
| about it.
| dvaun wrote:
| > They have the mean tendecy to explode into super sharp pieces
| when you're not expecting it, so wear goggles.
|
| Well, I guess I need to buy a new wedding ring at some point.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Your marriage yields the equivalent of 1000t pressure stress
| on your wedding ring?
| tomcam wrote:
| Mine does
| toiletaccount wrote:
| 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 danced.
|
| 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.
| theIV wrote:
| I accidentally dropped my tungsten carbide wedding band on my
| kitchen tile floor. Now, I have 4 shattered pieces of
| tungsten carbide sitting in a box on my desk.
| analog31 wrote:
| Given that my wedding ring is permanently egg shaped due to
| some impact that I don't even remember, I'll stick with gold.
| Ashanmaril wrote:
| I want to buy one but looking at the Amazon Canada listing, it's
| gonna rack up to $250 + tax
| jarenmf wrote:
| Same in Germany, it's 250 EUR
| MgB2 wrote:
| In Germany, you can get your tungsten at Smart Elements
| eps wrote:
| Way more expensive - 120 eur for 1 cm3 cube.
|
| https://www.smart-elements.com/shop/tungsten-precision-
| densi...
| BoppreH wrote:
| If you are willing to sacrifice a little on the
| appearance they have 1kg tungsten "ingots" for 99EUR.
|
| https://www.smart-elements.com/shop/tungsten-
| electrode-99-95...
| huhtenberg wrote:
| ~ 180 EUR if you order directly from
| https://midwesttungsten.com. Not sure if it's covers the
| import tax or not though.
| thrown wrote:
| Dudes posting their W's online
| trhway wrote:
| 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
| :)
| rdevsrex wrote:
| This is cool, but I still want to stack some gold coins.
| Animats wrote:
| You can get cubes of most of the solids in the periodic table
| here.[1] Some are very expensive, but available.
|
| [1] https://luciteria.com/metal-cubes
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| I wanted something like this for a long time after I first saw
| Carl Sagan's Cosmos in the early 80's. He had a periodic table
| with a sample of each element. Always thought it would be cool
| to have cubes of every solid.
| lisper wrote:
| I have a 2kg tunsgsten sphere. Also deeply viscerally satisfying
| to hold, and makes a great party trick.
| kylebenzle wrote:
| I got the big one from Midwest Tungston, about $700. Well worth
| it.
|
| I love letting people hold it. I call it my heavy ball.
| nimbius wrote:
| 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 labsheet) you
| probably bought _some_ tungsten. Lead, slag, tin and other
| undesirable byproducts also weigh a lot. Your cube, without
| proper inspection, may also be slightly radioactive as its likely
| sourced from scrap. This could be good or bad, but the cube most
| definitely isn 't a meaningful purchase.
| ScaleneTriangle wrote:
| 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 "vastly inflated prices" if you have the ability to
| produce and sell 1 kilogram cubes with the side length of an
| inch and a half for significantly less than OP paid then you
| should consider selling that information and retiring.
| kragen wrote:
| 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.
| bob1029 wrote:
| > 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.
| mhb wrote:
| 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.
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| > he purpose of this tungsten cube is not for engineering or
| practical utility.
|
| I would think you can easily sell it for the same or better
| price. It's like gold. it's a capacitor of wealth
| jarenmf wrote:
| If it brings OP joy, it's a reasonable and meaningful purchase
| markus_zhang wrote:
| This reminds me of Bill Gates who owns a small amount of every
| chemical element.
| falcrist wrote:
| I had to look this up. It seems he has a periodic table with
| lots of little cubbyholes with pictures and items representing
| the element, but not every element is actually there.
|
| It's hard to find a good source for details about this display,
| but he has cubbyholes for all of the lanthanides and actinides,
| so there must be some that don't have the actual element being
| represented.
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| I've been dreaming about getting the 4" tungsten cube for a while
| but could never justify buying it. I would need some extra truly
| disposable income, like as a side effect if I got really lucky
| gambling a marginal amount. Sadly in the last year it's price has
| jumped up 50% from $2000 to $3000.
| [deleted]
| ksec wrote:
| 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 10 _Kg_ or 26Lb.
| Everyone coming in the house would always (somehow) pick up these
| Dumbbell.......
| jacquesm wrote:
| I can see some practical joke potential here.
| scrps wrote:
| I had a neighbor a few years back who was a retired mechanical
| eng & machinist and as a retirement gift someone gave him a
| calibrated high percision gauge block set. There was some weird
| brain tingle I would get handling them, I think simply due to the
| extreme percision of them, I wonder if the sensation from
| handling the cube is similar?
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > gauge block
|
| It's so cool how they wring without magnetism.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5XOk1oMFh0
| jrumbut wrote:
| There's only one way to find out...
| zamadatix wrote:
| 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 sites set on something this size
| https://midwesttungsten.com/tungsten-cube/ for a while now.
| (about as much as I would feel safe setting down or handing to
| people considering the hard edges and chance of accidents) I've
| more than had the spending money to do it for a long time but
| much like the author I've just had a hard time justifying it. I
| suppose it's still less ridiculously than what many spend on car
| hobbies or whatnot. I'm sure I'll eventually get something of the
| nature.
|
| I'll also add I was extremely surprised others enjoyed it as
| well. Of all of my desk toys/models/prints it's generated the
| most talk amongst friends and coworkers.
|
| I'd like to experience a sizeable amount of iridium some day as
| well.
|
| Edit: One of the most fun gifts I've received (beyond the
| tungsten cube) was a 1" magnesium cube. Apart from being a
| ridiculous fire/blinding risk capable of easily melting through
| the tungsten cube if set off it is even lighter than an
| equivalently sized aluminum cube.
| brundolf wrote:
| > 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.
| divbzero wrote:
| 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...
| Taniwha wrote:
| https://luciteria.com/metal-cubes/iridium-metal-cube-9995
| mbreese wrote:
| 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)!
| tyingq wrote:
| Osmium would be heavier still (22.59 grams/cc), and a
| relative bargain at $1275 for the 10mm cube at the same
| source. Not polished/shiny though.
| sbierwagen wrote:
| 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.c
| om/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 melting from both sides and a lengthy cool down
| period (plus a couple of "ouch, where are my gloves"
| moments) Sacks' iridium was consolidated into a block a
| little over 2" square and less than 1/2" thick, weighing
| 1.7 pounds. It's startlingly heavy, distinctly more so
| than a similar sized tungsten block (which would be about
| 15% lighter and about 10,000% cheaper).
|
| If true, the melt lost 22.7% of the mass, which is pretty
| painful. Google is saying iridium is about $167,000 per
| kilo right now! I assume they've got a cold trap on the
| vacuum line, and recovered some of the difference in
| weight as fine iridium dust, but the rest is going to end
| up coating the inside of the vacuum chamber.
|
| If they routinely melt platinum-group metals, I wonder
| how often they scrap the entire chamber to melt it down
| and recover the evaporate.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| $9,000 for a 1cm cube. That's "winning the lotto impulse
| purchase" level for me.
| anonporridge wrote:
| 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.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Metals also survive pretty much anything, including
| catastrophic fires.
| moftz wrote:
| Gold can easily melt in a house fire. A diamond ring can
| turn into a puddle of gold and no diamond because it
| burned off
| lacksconfidence wrote:
| Gold bullion has a healthy market to sell back into
| though.I don't know the numbers, but i wouldn't be
| surprised if I could easily sell gold for 80% of "market"
| value, whereas probably closer to 20% for something like
| Iridium that has a very small adressable market unless I
| were to expend considerable effort finding someone
| willing to pay what it's worth.
| tyingq wrote:
| Platinum might be a better fit in this "really heavy"
| category. 21.447 grams/cc versus gold at 19.3 grams/cc.
| tofuahdude wrote:
| New form of investment?
| dekhn wrote:
| 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.
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| 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?
| dekhn wrote:
| 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/
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Much cheaper if you can negotiate a price while cutting out the
| middleman (Scamazon):
|
| https://www.tungstenheavypowder.com/tungsten-balls-spheres-c...
| onychomys wrote:
| That place looks like you're meant to shop in bulk. Having one
| cube would be cool, but I probably don't need a thousand of
| them.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| The prices are listed as "Request quote". So it could as well
| be more expensive
| aranchelk wrote:
| At Christmas my partner's family always struggle to know what to
| get me. One year I just said anything made of titanium. Everyone
| thought that was super weird.
|
| Now I'm thinking it must have been the metal's low density.
| lxe wrote:
| 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
| creddit wrote:
| Generous friend at $3K!
| lxe wrote:
| He's a TechLead at a FAANG company
| mdorazio wrote:
| Pro tip: as with many things on Amazon, you can usually get these
| cubes (or spheres) for a fair amount less on eBay.
| CPLX wrote:
| I clicked on this post out of standard curiosity.
|
| Now I have a tracking number for a cube of tungsten that will
| arrive at my office by tomorrow afternoon.
|
| Happens.
| quwert95 wrote:
| I also have this cube as part of a set. As a far as desk
| accessories and toys go it's unique and a fun thing to show off.
|
| If you get the set that has the copper cube beware that the
| copper one will oxidize and discolor if you touch it a lot.
| gfody wrote:
| 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.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| Foreverspin make spinning tops out of all kinds of interesting
| materials including tungsten.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| The tops look like fun: https://midwesttungsten.com/tungsten-
| shapes-toys/spinning-to...
| sosuke wrote:
| LOL at the Pinewood Derby tungsten blocks. Feels like
| cheating no?
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| 1" copper sphere. Satisfyingly heavy and wasn't expensive, maybe
| $15 at the Smithsonian gift shop.
|
| I keep it next to a similarly sized, nearly spherical light gray
| pumice stone I picked up near Crater Lake years ago. Satisfyingly
| light!
|
| I was given a tungsten carbide ring that's supposed to be easy on
| the skin, but it rotted my flesh. I tried not to read anything
| into it.
| ffhhj wrote:
| I instead bought a lamp with tungsten filament filled with Xenon
| gas for $5. Sometimes I slowly apply a little current to it to
| see the filament radiate. This is a 150W halogen bulb. I don't
| know what the crystal is made of, but tungsten and xenon are
| interesting.
| mclightning wrote:
| This is one of those moments I feel so out of touch with the
| community here. Is this even real life?
| skohan wrote:
| I actually had the opposite reaction. A few months ago, I was
| researching a project involving a counterweight, and the
| periodic table led me to tungsten on account of its density.
| That was until I saw the price.
|
| Ever since then I have been vaguely considering buying a
| tungsten cube as a curiosity. I am bemused to find that others
| on hacker news seem to have arrived at the same idea.
| kragen wrote:
| Totally by coincidence, yesterday I was trying to plot out
| the cost/kg vs. density Pareto optimality curve. Construction
| sand is US$0.03/kg and 2.4 g/cc; magnetite is US$0.10/kg and
| about 5 g/cc (I don't have the notes in front of me); scrap
| steel is US$0.20/kg and 7.9 g/cc; scrap lead is US$0.95/kg
| and 11.3 g/cc or maybe a bit less; tungsten is US$30/kg and
| 19 g/cc; and osmium is US$13000/kg and 22.65 g/cc. I'm
| interested to know what I'm missing; is there anything denser
| than steel but cheaper than lead, for example, or denser than
| magnetite but cheaper than scrap steel? Is there tungsten
| carbide that's cheaper than tungsten?
|
| Mercury is denser than lead but doesn't have a well-defined
| market price any more and has certain disadvantages. Many
| mercury amalgams would be a better substitute in many
| circumstances, but they might impose high costs on you for
| reasons that come down to pure superstition.
| AndrewOMartin wrote:
| Maybe you'll prefer one of the million articles about a passive
| PS10k MRR, or how I sold my Twitter bit for an infinity billion
| dollar valuation, but this thread is about someone who spent a
| slightly disconcerting amount of money on an entirely inert,
| but hefty, cube of material and finds it pleasant.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Aha, yes. I wanted one for a mini periodic table.
| divbzero wrote:
| Would you include radioactive elements in your real life
| periodic table?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| No, because they would change into other elements :)
| tiborsaas wrote:
| If you take a closer look, it's a brilliant sales pitch with an
| affiliate link to Amazon.
| eps wrote:
| I see two links there, neither is of an affiliate type.
| Avshalom wrote:
| Gotta say I love the ad copy for the 10 pound cube:
| ADD to your collection! This cube is the larger version of the
| world famous tungsten cube COMPARE the density to our
| 2.5" Aluminum cube to enhance the experience
| burnished wrote:
| this is the sort of value driven advertising that I appreciate
| modeless wrote:
| 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
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| 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.)
| WJW wrote:
| Thorstein Veblen wrote a whole book about this phenomenon.
| Tl;dr: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
| mdavis6890 wrote:
| 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.
| freetinker wrote:
| Shoes (especially the ones people buy for fashion value -
| think Louboutin stilettos vs. something more functional
| like New Balance sneakers) are a Veblen good. Their
| perceived value increases with their price. Like art.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
| kragen wrote:
| Also, if a market is efficient, prices will closely track
| (marginal) use value. If a brand can demand a price
| premium, it's because their products are higher quality,
| and nobody has been able to produce a comparable product
| at a lower cost. Red Wing boots are more expensive than
| Timberland boots, for example, because they're made from
| full-grain leather and have good quality control, and
| they will last the rest of your life if you care for them
| properly. (They're more expensive than New Balance
| sneakers, too, but Nike sneakers are the same price as
| Red Wing boots without being of high quality, for the
| Veblen-good reasons you cite.)
|
| That's why when I buy wine for my girlfriend I don't buy
| the cheapest brand. It's not that I think the wine market
| is efficient, particularly when I'm at a supermarket that
| can charge whatever price they want instead of comparing
| prices at https://1000corks.com/; it's that I think my
| ignorance of wine is deeper than the market's
| inefficiency.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Once it gets large enough, it will end up at MOMA.
| kindall wrote:
| Imagine how much a really big cube of tungsten would weigh.
| Installing it at MOMA would itself be the art.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| Presumably in one of the basement spaces.
| cwkoss wrote:
| I wonder if anyone is manufacturing tungsten dumbbells. Would
| be very pricy, but also super cool.
| 6nf wrote:
| 'Official' sports kettlebells are all the same physical size
| but are available in a wide range of weights. For sizes 8kg
| to about 32kg they just use steel. For heavier ones they use
| lead. The very heaviest kettlebells contain tunsten.
| plorkyeran wrote:
| The brittleness would be an issue. Shattering when you drop
| it isn't really a property you want in dumbbells.
| temp0826 wrote:
| This is why I prefer uranium dumbbells
| alasdair_ wrote:
| I bought a cube of aerogel and feel the same way about it, with
| the obvious distinction of it being insanely light not heavy.
| devindotcom wrote:
| Cool cube and I want one. But a metalworking friend of mine
| warned against getting a ring made out of tungsten.
|
| Apparently a climber had one on and broke his ring finger, and
| the EMTs couldn't get the ring off because the finger had swollen
| and they couldn't cut the ring due to the strength of the metal.
| They ended up having to amputate and re-attach the finger (much
| longer and it would have had to be amputated anyway, it seems).
| ISL wrote:
| 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
| BizarroLand wrote:
| 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.
| ISL wrote:
| My choice was titanium, which I used to make ours. It is
| (IMHO) among the finest of all materials for the job.
| e12e wrote:
| > among the finest of all materials for the job.
|
| Titanium should also work great for forced amputation in
| the case of a broken finger I suppose...
| BizarroLand wrote:
| Titanium is a good choice, much harder to break than
| tungsten and cheaper than tungsten or silver, too.
| learc83 wrote:
| I got a tantalum ring. It look a bit like tungsten or
| titanium but it's much softer.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| The ones I saw from a quick search were nice looking but
| pretty pricey. Basic Gold rings were going for the same
| price as some of the fancier designs so I think that
| would be more of a design / aesthetic choice.
|
| Titanium / Tungsten / Silver are for people who want an
| inexpensive ring.
| dharmab wrote:
| This sounds like an urban legend. "Ring cracker" tools are
| widely available, and can be improvised from common tools.
| jacquesm wrote:
| 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.
| dharmab wrote:
| EMTs and firefighters usually carry basic tools in their
| ambulances and trucks. The tools will certainly be at an ER
| or trauma center.
| 6nf wrote:
| 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.
| jacquesm wrote:
| 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.
| WJW wrote:
| 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.
| 6nf wrote:
| Vice grip pliers capable of breaking a tungsten ring is
| cheaper and easier to purchase than the bolt cutters
| needed to remove a titanium ring
| learc83 wrote:
| 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.
| jacquesm wrote:
| If your finger is broken it will swell up so fast you may
| not even be able to get to the ring with something that
| can crack it. This is not something that I would risk for
| any price.
| dharmab wrote:
| Ring crackers and vice grips would both work just fine.
| SoylentYellow wrote:
| I'm surprised the EMTs did not know how to remove the ring.
| Squeeze it with locking pliers and it will break into pieces.
| AndrewOMartin wrote:
| We can only pray that all EMTs read your comment such that
| they may be redeemed.
| WJW wrote:
| Out of all humanity, it seems that EMTs are at the low end
| of the scale for needing to be redeemed.
| silisili wrote:
| Similarly, if missing pliers, you should be able to set it on
| a hard surface(like concrete or metal) and give it a few
| tough taps with something hard. They shatter shockingly easy.
| hencq wrote:
| Considering that in this case there's a finger inside the
| ring, I'm not sure if that's such an amazing idea.
| silisili wrote:
| Just use lighter taps :).
|
| See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN71I3PKR6g
| hencq wrote:
| Haha, you're right, that doesn't look that bad
| jacquesm wrote:
| Exactly this. That was my first reaction when someone upthread
| wrote that they made a ring out of tungsten. I can only imagine
| that it would lead to misery at some point. You _really_ don 't
| want this kind of metal for Jewelry that surrounds you
| (wristband, ring, ankleband). You're going to get hurt sooner
| or later.
| frakt0x90 wrote:
| I bought a tungsten wedding band and will never again. Not
| because of its hardness but because I dropped it on the floor
| and it shattered. Apparently tungsten is very brittle and is
| useless on a hand that does anything. Luckily it was cheap.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Ring avulsion is pretty scary too, and can happen with any
| metal ring.
| xupybd wrote:
| Yeah my work mate wears a silicone band at work after almost
| losing a finger. I still wear my gold band but am rethinking
| it.
| tshaddox wrote:
| The silicone bands are pretty popular in the "outdoors"
| community too (hiking, rock climbing, etc.)
| oxfeed65261 wrote:
| I had to look this up: 'Ring avulsion happens when a ring on
| one of your fingers is caught on an object and gets yanked
| off suddenly and rapidly. The force and pressure of the ring
| being pulled can strip off and damage finger tissues,
| including muscles, tendons, and bones. This is called
| "degloving."' https://www.healthline.com/health/ring-avulsion
| contravariant wrote:
| Ah, thanks, those are the kind of search queries that I'm
| somewhat apprehensive about. Especially with search engines
| that think it's a good idea to immediately show you images
| if they think you're searching for something visual.
|
| Thankfully the article you linked doesn't contain any
| images.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Try finding a machinist that wears jewelry. Either they have
| yet to learn a painful lesson or they will have learned it
| directly or indirectly (colleague, machinist friend). That's
| one thing you learn to respect in a hurry: no jewelry near
| rotating machinery.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I've only spent a very small amount of time around
| woodworkers, but I imagine that scarves are a big no-no as
| well. ;)
| jacquesm wrote:
| And loose clothing, gloves, ties (I once saw a visiting
| salesguy almost lose his head in a demonstration lathe),
| in fact anything that can end up where you don't want it
| to.
|
| Similar advisories hold for printing presses, farm
| equipment and so on. Printing presses are particularly
| nasty because they tend to be so spotless that you can't
| tell if they're rotating or not by looking at the
| surface.
| yrral wrote:
| 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 to fake gold
| jacquesm wrote:
| That is a terrible video.
| daemoens wrote:
| I thought it was entertaining.
| mkaic wrote:
| Thanks for reminding me that this video exists. William never
| fails to make me laugh.
| ipsin wrote:
| I purchased a 35 pound tungsten racing weight about 15 years ago,
| 70% tungsten if I recall. It's large enough that it's triggered
| my "why do I have this?" sense, but it is still cool to hold.
|
| It's very important to realize that it's not a safe object, the
| kind you might leave on your desk at work.
|
| If someone tries to pick it up for some reason, it's quite likely
| that they'll drop it.
| [deleted]
| code_duck wrote:
| I have a collection of thin tungsten cylinders if anyone is in
| the market!
|
| Glassblowers use tungsten rods to pierce borosilicate glass. When
| you get tungsten and a piece of glass hot, you can push the
| tungsten through the glass fairly easily. Tungsten doesn't get
| "wet" and stick to glass at these temperatures (~2000F), unlike
| other metals we use such as steel or brass. We tend to buy these
| at the welding store (arc welders use them as electrodes or
| something).
| skykooler wrote:
| Note that if you're buying welding tungsten as a plaything,
| avoid the oneswith the red paint on the end - they contain
| thorium to improve the electrical arc and as such are a bit
| radioactive, and shouldn't be directly handled for long
| periods.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I wonder why it is 5% nickel/iron -- availability? Machining
| purposes?
| adammunich wrote:
| Machining
| zanecodes wrote:
| The Amazon seller mentions that pure tungsten is typically too
| brittle to machine.
| opwieurposiu wrote:
| Because of tungsten has the highest melting point of all
| metals, it very expensive to cast pure tungsten ingots.
| Instead, powdered tungsten is mixed with small amounts of
| powdered nickel or other metals, and sintered.
|
| Also pure tungsten is often excessively brittle.
| juancampa wrote:
| If you drop it, your floor won't like it. My 2lb one is great
| though!
| cwkoss wrote:
| My dad owns both a tungsten cube and a tungsten sphere. I
| slightly prefer the sphere, the smoothness and lack of corners,
| combined with density, makes it really try to slip out of hour
| hand.
|
| Can be a bit dangerous for your floors, but lots of fun to hold.
| vayeate wrote:
| I have a 2" cube and wish I had the sphere instead for sure
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| This reads like they're allegorically throwing shade. At what I'm
| not sure.
| andagainagain wrote:
| I bought a set of 1cm element cubes awhile ago. There is
| definitely a change of perspective of density when you see
| several things of one generic size, and yet they are dramatically
| different weights.
|
| I think it's fairly common to see volume and assume weight. And
| less volume is often assumed to be a structure issue, like
| expanded metal vs solid blocks of metal.
| aappleby wrote:
| I love my tungsten cube <3
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| I have a tungsten wedding ring and the weirdest thing about it is
| how it bounces (on the occasions when it's flown out of my hand -
| I don't make a habit of doing so normally).
|
| It's dense/heavy so seeing it bounce so well is somewhat
| paradoxical.
|
| (Side note: it may be impossible to cut through in case of an
| emergency but your finger is not.)
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _may be impossible to cut through in case of an emergency but
| your finger is not_
|
| Was seriously considering tungsten recently, but ended up going
| with titanium for this exact reason.
| kakali wrote:
| I believe you can shatter then with vice grips in an emergency.
| foobarian wrote:
| I often marvel at the densities of the various heavy metals
| especially compared to steel. The densest of them like osmium are
| almost 3x as dense!
|
| I wish I could afford an osmium cube. I guess tungsten is the
| best cheapest-yet-still-heavy option.
| lisper wrote:
| Tungesten is only 10% less dense than osmium. I doubt you could
| tell the difference without a scale.
| ISL wrote:
| Osmium is not good for you.
|
| If tungsten isn't dense-enough for you, consider platinum or
| rhenium.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| 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.
| sbierwagen wrote:
| 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!)
| ortusdux wrote:
| I have plenty of samples of explosion bonded metals that I fidget
| with in a similar manner. Samples that combine metals with
| different densities feel unnatural in the hand.
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