My Tungsten Cube (2019)

I used to work with tungsten carbide cubes during my PhD thesis. They&#x27;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&#x27;s mantle.<p>I also used the opportunity to snap a neat picture of a polished WC cube: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;C2YiMqb.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;C2YiMqb.jpg</a><p>I always had fun handing them over to students because everyone is surprised by the sheer weight of these things.<p>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&#x27;re not expecting it, so wear goggles.

&gt; I struggled a lot with deciding to buy a cube. It felt wrong to spend so much money on a featureless hunk of metal.<p>When I bought my cube, I used it as an exercise to fight back against my frugality.<p>But it wasn&#x27;t meant to be: it was delivered to the wrong address and I received a full refund.<p>Then my neighbor delivered it to me.

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&quot; 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&#x27;ll enjoy it.<p>I&#x27;ve had my sites set on something this size <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;midwesttungsten.com&#x2F;tungsten-cube&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;midwesttungsten.com&#x2F;tungsten-cube&#x2F;</a> 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&#x27;ve more than had the spending money to do it for a long time but much like the author I&#x27;ve just had a hard time justifying it. I suppose it&#x27;s still less ridiculously than what many spend on car hobbies or whatnot. I&#x27;m sure I&#x27;ll eventually get something of the nature.<p>I&#x27;ll also add I was extremely surprised others enjoyed it as well. Of all of my desk toys&#x2F;models&#x2F;prints it&#x27;s generated the most talk amongst friends and coworkers.<p>I&#x27;d like to experience a sizeable amount of iridium some day as well.<p>Edit: One of the most fun gifts I&#x27;ve received (beyond the tungsten cube) was a 1&quot; magnesium cube. Apart from being a ridiculous fire&#x2F;blinding risk capable of easily melting through the tungsten cube if set off it is even lighter than an equivalently sized aluminum cube.

William Osman had a video where he &quot;experimented&quot; with a huge tungsten cube. It&#x27;s quite entertaining.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=9O551__3ppM" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=9O551__3ppM</a><p>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

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&#x2F;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 &quot;the brick&quot; 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.<p>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&#x2F;2 thick aluminum turn into a puddle while the tungsten just gets a dent in it. You&#x27;d think copper is a good second bet but nope. Its good at heat sinking but melts way quicker.

I have a collection of thin tungsten cylinders if anyone is in the market!<p>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).

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.

We put a $600 tungsten sphere on our secret wedding registry as a joke, along with lobster flavored pillow mints, etc. It arrived in the mail. My husband&#x27;s high school friends had pooled their resources. Now it&#x27;s on the mantle, resting amongst warm woolen pom-poms.

Some of the reviews on these are fantastic:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;gp&#x2F;customer-reviews&#x2F;RZKKKAM6FE5AI" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;gp&#x2F;customer-reviews&#x2F;RZKKKAM6FE5AI</a>

Cool cube and I want one. But a metalworking friend of mine warned against getting a ring made out of tungsten.<p>Apparently a climber had one on and broke his ring finger, and the EMTs couldn&#x27;t get the ring off because the finger had swollen and they couldn&#x27;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).

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.

I had a neighbor a few years back who was a retired mechanical eng &amp; 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?

This reminds me of the infamous cube of saguaro rib wood from Dwarf Fortress<p>[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:WOOD:WOOD_TEMPLATE] [STATE_NAME:ALL_SOLID:saguaro rib wood] [STATE_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:saguaro rib] [PREFIX:NONE] Density was determined experimentally. Contact Uristocrat for a sample if you want to verify this yourself. A 6g (+&#x2F;- 0.1g) piece of dry Saguaro wood had a volume of approximately 14 cm^3 (+&#x2F;- 1 cm^3) [SOLID_DENSITY:430] [STATE_COLOR:ALL_SOLID:ECRU]<p>Source: the &#x27;raws&#x27; link on the page <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dwarffortresswiki.org&#x2F;index.php&#x2F;DF2014:Saguaro" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dwarffortresswiki.org&#x2F;index.php&#x2F;DF2014:Saguaro</a>

You can get cubes of most of the solids in the periodic table here.[1] Some are very expensive, but available.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;luciteria.com&#x2F;metal-cubes" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;luciteria.com&#x2F;metal-cubes</a>

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.<p>Can be a bit dangerous for your floors, but lots of fun to hold.

I bought a cube of aerogel and feel the same way about it, with the obvious distinction of it being insanely light not heavy.

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.<p>I think it&#x27;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.

I held a neptunium (20.45 g&#x2F;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&#x27;s empty - you apply a force and it doesn&#x27;t budge. I had to lift it as if I was lifting a stack of books to get it off the pedestal.

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).<p>It’s dense&#x2F;heavy so seeing it bounce so well is somewhat paradoxical.<p>(Side note: it may be impossible to cut through in case of an emergency but your finger is not.)

I purchased a 35 pound tungsten racing weight about 15 years ago, 70% tungsten if I recall. It&#x27;s large enough that it&#x27;s triggered my &quot;why do I have this?&quot; sense, but it is still cool to hold.<p>It&#x27;s very important to realize that it&#x27;s not a safe object, the kind you might leave on your desk at work.<p>If someone tries to pick it up for some reason, it&#x27;s quite likely that they&#x27;ll drop it.

Gotta say I love the ad copy for the 10 pound cube:<p><pre><code> ADD to your collection! This cube is the larger version of the world famous tungsten cube COMPARE the density to our 2.5&quot; Aluminum cube to enhance the experience</code></pre>

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.<p>Now I’m thinking it must have been the metal’s low density.

I hope I&#x27;m not too late to the cube measuring party. My friend gave me the 4 inch one for my birthday, and it&#x27;s been a source of constant amazement ever since: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;midwesttungsten.com&#x2F;tungsten-cube&#x2F;?sku=40400-03914B&amp;_vsrefdom=adwords" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;midwesttungsten.com&#x2F;tungsten-cube&#x2F;?sku=40400-03914B&amp;...</a><p>It weighs over 40 lbs and it&#x27;s almost impossible to lift with one hand.<p>I haven&#x27;t smashed anything with it yet

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!<p>I wish I could afford an osmium cube. I guess tungsten is the best cheapest-yet-still-heavy option.

When this was posted in 2019 it compelled me to get a tungsten cube as well.<p>One additional benefit that gives me more joy than fidgeting with it: it is great educational prop. Kids that visit my place have a habit of picking it up, either by their own initiative or prompted by me. Being surprised at the weight they start asking question and are then receptive to hear me give a short explanation. I love that curiosity.

Somewhat-tangentially related: I’ve always found the concept of [Rods from God](<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Kinetic_bombardment" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Kinetic_bombardment</a>) (kinetic bombardment of tungsten rods dropped from orbit) fascinating.

I&#x27;ve been dreaming about getting the 4&quot; 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&#x27;s price has jumped up 50% from $2000 to $3000.

Much cheaper if you can negotiate a price while cutting out the middleman (Scamazon):<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tungstenheavypowder.com&#x2F;tungsten-balls-spheres-cubes&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tungstenheavypowder.com&#x2F;tungsten-balls-spheres-c...</a>

Kids ask &quot;ahh, gee, when will I ever need to use geometry?&quot; and the answer is when you realize you got ripped off by paying the same price for a 1.5&quot; diameter tungsten sphere as you would for a 1.5&quot; tungsten cube.

I also have this cube as part of a set. As a far as desk accessories and toys go it&#x27;s unique and a fun thing to show off.<p>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.

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.

Pro tip: as with many things on Amazon, you can usually get these cubes (or spheres) for a fair amount less on eBay.

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.

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&#x2F;diamond sort of ring for engagement. We figured we could always get platinum or gold rings later.<p>I&#x27;ve found that I really love it, and now we may not replace mine at all. It&#x27;s hilariously heavy and has a nice brushed finish.

I didn&#x27;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&#x27;t afford the $600K for a gold bar however.

Damn. Midwest Tungsten Service now owes &#x27;defaulty&#x27; a nice little Thank You card.<p>If anyone wants to compare, my order ID is 10000107xx ;)

I clicked on this post out of standard curiosity.<p>Now I have a tracking number for a cube of tungsten that will arrive at my office by tomorrow afternoon.<p>Happens.

1” copper sphere. Satisfyingly heavy and wasn’t expensive, maybe $15 at the Smithsonian gift shop.<p>I keep it next to a similarly sized, nearly spherical light gray pumice stone I picked up near Crater Lake years ago. Satisfyingly light!<p>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.

I have a 2kg tunsgsten sphere. Also deeply viscerally satisfying to hold, and makes a great party trick.

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<i>Kg</i> or 26Lb. Everyone coming in the house would always (somehow) pick up these Dumbbell.......

This is one of those moments I feel so out of touch with the community here. Is this even real life?

I have a block of tungsten about the size of my fist. Got it at a missile test range. When the explosives are replaced by the telemetry unit, empty space is packed with tungsten to make up the weight difference. The target area was filthy with tungsten blocks.

I visited a national laboratory for an experiment and saw the tungsten bricks the size of a normal building red brick) they used to shield parts of experiments from high energy particles. They weighed about 60 lbs each.

i bought a CNC so I could make my own cubes. It&#x27;s very nice. I often make objects just so I can hold them later.

If you drop it, your floor won&#x27;t like it. My 2lb one is great though!

around the time of elementary school i had a ~15cm diameter steel (or may be something harder given where it came from - i didn&#x27;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 :)

&quot;The Simpsons Did It&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=VTLYris4kJU" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=VTLYris4kJU</a>

Love this. I bought a 3&quot; mostly-tungsten cube a few months ago.<p>Almost without fail, every time I walk by it I pick it up.<p>And without fail, every time is satisfying.<p>(The 3&quot; cube weighs ~18 pounds.)

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&#x27;t know what the crystal is made of, but tungsten and xenon are interesting.

I really want to get a gold plated one. The density of tungsten is less than 1% different from gold

I want to buy one but looking at the Amazon Canada listing, it&#x27;s gonna rack up to $250 + tax

I love this kind of thing. My favorite fidgeting things are two 2-inch stainless steel ball bearings I got from Ebay. Perfectly round to the eye and mirror smooth. I sit and clack them together; the sound and sensation they make is addictive to me.

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 &quot;silver&quot; dollar, which is the same size but weighs a fraction as much.

I&#x27;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&#x27;t know about $130 of enjoyment for one more in the set.

This reads like they&#x27;re allegorically throwing shade. At what I&#x27;m not sure.

I wonder why it is 5% nickel&#x2F;iron -- availability? Machining purposes?

I have a tungsten cube and some tungsten dice. They&#x27;re impressive to hold, and make a nice satisfying thunk when the dice are thrown.<p>I also have a magnesium cube. Really amazing to compare the weights.

Dammit, I&#x27;m gonna end up buying one of these, aren&#x27;t I?

I too have owned a tungsten rod for the same reasons. it&#x27;s very nearly exactly the same density as gold, but cheaper.

I was expecting to read &quot;I love my precious tungsten cube... <i>my precious</i>&quot; in the conclussion

Tungsten beads are also popular as a weight for fly fishing nymphs due to their density.

Hmmm, now there goes my compulsive spending over the weekend, yeah i&#x27;ll get one

This reminds me of Bill Gates who owns a small amount of every chemical element.

I love my tungsten cube &lt;3

The Amazon reviews make it seem like this is a meme product.

This is cool, but I still want to stack some gold coins.

…that’s a sphere though

The more accurate title would be &quot;My 95% Tungsten 5% Nickel&#x2F;Iron Cube&quot;

Tungsten rocks.

I work sometimes in a metal shop where Tungsten alloys abound. This might be the stupidest hn post I&#x27;ve ever read.<p>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 <i>the</i> hardest isn&#x27;t being the best. Tungsten is extraordinarily brittle. A hard drop on concrete could crack it.<p>I&#x27;d also argue without a MA (metal analysis or labsheet) you probably bought <i>some</i> 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&#x27;t a meaningful purchase.