One of my chemistry teachers kept a chunk of tungsten on his desk as a conversation piece. He loved to ask people pick it up. Tungsten has about twice the density of lead.

I’ve been looking off and on over the years for a piece of tungsten and have finally found it. This is a 2”cube of 95% tungsten (with nickel and iron alloyed). Pure tungsten is kind of a dirty looking grey and is brittle. This cube is beautiful!

It’s pricey but I’m old and can’t take it with me. Anyway, it’s a lot cheaper than a 2” cube of gold, platinum, osmium, iridium, or depleted uranium.

Tungsten Cube

Looks fun! I'd buy it.

Good thing it's free Prime shipping.

Back in the day I used to throw darts at a local pub. Tungsten darts had good heft and good penetration into the cork or bristle board while being slim.

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Did you notice the same company is also selling this 5.2lbs 2" tungsten cube along with an .8lbs 2" aluminum cube for the same $289 price as the one cube you found?

www.Amazon.com/dp/B01J6IFOV6?psc=1

While you toss the aluminum cube from one hand to the other, invite your friends to hold the tungsten. They sure aren't as strong as they look!!!

Jim. If it makes you happy to own it.....go for it.

Life's short.

I remember being like 16 or 18 and being shown some depleted uranium. I remember thinking "damn I can't imagine this simply dropped on me out of the sky much less sent express at at 3200 fps.

Those super dense metals are neat.

quote:

Originally posted by Jim Shugart:
One of my chemistry teachers kept a chunk of tungsten on his desk as a conversation piece. He loved to ask people pick it up. Tungsten has about twice the density of lead.

I’ve been looking off and on over the years for a piece of tungsten and have finally found it. This is a 2”cube of 95% tungsten (with nickel and iron alloyed). Pure tungsten is kind of a dirty looking grey and is brittle. This cube is beautiful!

It’s pricey but I’m old and can’t take it with me. Anyway, it’s a lot cheaper than a 2” cube of gold, platinum, osmium, iridium, or depleted uranium.

Tungsten Cube

Wait? I can get depleted uranium?

I think it's legal to own it, although I wouldn't want to use a chunk of it for a paperweight. Besides being slightly radioactive, it's also toxic. It's probably kinda pricey also - if you can find a supplier.

Super dense metals are definitely neat.

I've got to get my ass into bed. We're leaving on a trip with the Virginia Historical Society early. Nite all!

Depleted Uranium is as close to being not radioactive as something can get, yet still be radioactive. Its half life is 4.5 BILLION years.

When pure it is also not that toxic, unless you consume it, or put it into solution and inject it or vaporize it and inhale it. It doesn't easily form stable organic compounds, so it is really hard to do any of those things with it.

Yeah, that's one of the latest things in archery, tungsten arrow tips. They are expensive at $250/dozen. My daughter will be shooting stainless steel tips for quite some time...

At the opposite end of the spectrum when I TA'd the freshmen intro to structures course I got in a little trouble. The professor had a styrofoam masonry unit. It looked just like a concrete block, especially after I painted it. Fun watching a bunch of innocent freshman duck and cover when I threw it out into the middle of the lecture hall.

Go for it.

Did you see that a free 1" cube is sent with the 2" cube?

Sounds like a karma......

Cool. I'm more of a Beryllium guy myself

Can I have the "Free" 1" cube that comes with it?

Pretty neat, ebay has a 1.5 inch for 140.00 if you dont need all 2 inches.

Now you need Log.

quote:

One of my chemistry teachers kept a chunk of tungsten on his desk as a conversation piece. He loved to ask people pick it up. ...

I had a chemistry teacher like that. He used some sort of iodine crystals on a tin pie plate. They were unstable and mildly explosive. If you bumped the plate, they'd go off like so many little fire crackers...he just loved that. This is the guy, too, that dropped a golf ball size chunk of sodium out the window into a puddle of water during a rain storm. Yeah, that one got him in trouble for a few days.

Did you notice the titanium fidget spinner offered below the tungsten cube ? Fits in with the bitch post elsewhere on the forum....

It's amazing that the 2 inch cube weighs around 5 pounds. That would freak people out.

We had a student in grad school who worked at the place in Erwin TN that helped manufacture the Depleted U projectiles/bullets. He brought one to class to pass around. Everyone saw the person in front of them almost drop it because it was so heavy and it didn't matter if you knew - when they handed it to you, you still weren't able to hold it steady because of the weight.

quote:

Originally posted by CQB60:
Cool. I'm more of a Beryllium guy myself

Now you've done it. I can just see "Beryllium" popping up on birth certificates in the 'hood.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

Originally posted by CQB60:
Cool. I'm more of a Beryllium guy myself

Now you've done it. I can just see "Beryllium" popping up on birth certificates in the 'hood.

Saw two new ones on Family Feud last night, Shametria and Torquesia. Gotta love it.

Tungsten and Gold have almost identical densities (the same to 4 significant figures). This makes it possible to create "gold" bricks that are mostly tungsten with an outer layer of gold, and worth much less than one of solid gold. Since both are very dense, X-rays can't be used to determine if the center is tungsten. Naturally, this possibility greatly worries those who deal in gold.

Beryllium is, IIRC, extremely toxic and must be handled with care (if at all). I'm told the effects are not pretty.

I think the "iodine" crystals the teacher used were probably Nitrogen Tri-iodide (NI3). They are made by dropping iodine crystals into ammonia, letting them react, then filtering them out of the liquid. While wet they are marginally stable, but when dry the touch of a feather will set them off. (No--I've never done it.) FWIW, they are discussed in the Heinlein novel "Farnham's Freehold" as a substitute for dynamite.

flashguy

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