Nuclear materials scientist here - tungsten is such a dope material, we're actually considering it to make the inner walls of future nuclear fusion tokamaks. It's pretty much one of the only materials on Earth capable of withstanding those 3000°C of continuous exposure without losing much if its mechanical properties. My current work is actually about exploring tungsten 3D-printing and basically laser-welding it to other metals (using kW-range lasers). Anyway - awesome video, very cool to see you play around with it in a blacksmithing workshop!
@devincarter60055 ай бұрын
Thanks for your work! Hope to see much more in the world of nuclear
@jackh57615 ай бұрын
that sounds really interesting. any literature on it out there?
@biowerks5 ай бұрын
Within the next few months you will be replaced by a black woman that was the worst sandwich artist at subway and got fired because she never showed up on time.
@cheddarchap5 ай бұрын
thats the coolest pfp tbh, never even thought of using a plasma globe as one
@cucciafr685 ай бұрын
Will you be using pure tungsten or will it be an alloy/ceramic like WC? I've seen some crazy tungsten carbide parts but have always been curious about 3D printing it. It would be tough since you'd have to do it green (un-sintered powder) which you would have to account for shrinkage.
@jonasc31505 ай бұрын
13:30 imagine a 5kg block at 1300 °C launching in your direction with lethal speed. I jumped.
@qwerty-d7j1i5 ай бұрын
right? how is bro laughing I would be terrified. it will probably stick to your skin too if it hits you... maybe you are "lucky" and it hits you so hard it bounces away and breaks your rib instead of frying your skin
@ForestRaptor5 ай бұрын
I reflexively paused the video in an attempt to freeze the block from hitting him :< I don't know what my brain thought it could accomplish but it seems I have an innate want to freeze time :
@synergy0215 ай бұрын
@@qwerty-d7j1i Leidenfrost effect would likely have it boil the water from his skin and bounce off from an initial quick contact.
@TaylerTayler-up8mc5 ай бұрын
I have been told of a guy who died in a similar way. The melted metal went right thru his body. They were cutting metal with torches, not forging tho.
@marhawkman3035 ай бұрын
@@TaylerTayler-up8mc Yeah, force pushing is a huge factor. something bumping you... might only stay in contact a moment. and 5Kg or not... this cube is gonna bounce off. End result would be like getting branded I suspect.
@Alphaavarice5 ай бұрын
I don't usually comment on stuff, but this is an area I have some experience. I'm a machinist and have done a good bit of work with tungsten; mostly weights and bucking bars. Other than being very, very dense and stable I wouldn't really call Tungsten a supermetal. It machines just like cast iron, you use pretty much identical feeds and speeds. As you saw it's quite easy to work with saws and abrasives as well. There's a reason (well, many) that you don't have things like knives made out of pure tungsten. Steel is or can be better in effectively every way. Tungsten is tough but doesn't hold an edge well. It's dense but deforms rather easily, we have to remachine bucking bars made from it fairly often. It's a very cool material but not the wondermetal people often make it out to be.
@tl13265 ай бұрын
have you seen the purple smoke?
@antonk.6535 ай бұрын
I have also worked with tungsten a little bit, where I had to spot weld it to steel (well, actually I wrapped it thin steel foil and welded that to itself). Welding tungsten sheets was very difficult, and after it heated up to 1200°C it became brittle like a cookie. I would love to see machining of this tungsten block in the video AFTER heating it in the forge, because I believe that we would see a much more brittle surface. Also, the carbon concentration at the surface might have increased, granting it a bit more strength.
@aserta5 ай бұрын
The only thing i've ever bought T for is to remake the head assembly of my burners. Cast iron degrades over time, this (at least so far - with one of them having at least 150~160 burns on it) doesn't. I've heated it many times (over all the burners i made) and all of them still have the machining marks on them. Best money ever spent, because i used to have cast ones, which were pretty decent, but over time they'd start getting loose and chipped and the flames didn't have the right definition anymore. I'm currently working out a design for a friend, who saw them and wants tips for his artisan glass making torch.
@ACinthemaking5 ай бұрын
Tungsten is double the hardness of steel how does it not hold as well of an edge? Is it because it chips due to brittleness or does it get dull from abrasion?
@zazzyboy85925 ай бұрын
A tungsten hammer would go hard
@fernus833 ай бұрын
Aircraft technician here, we use tungsten for bucking bars. We drive aluminum and steel rivets with a rivet hammer (rivet gun) and a bucking bar, because tungsten is heavier than steel it drives the rivets easier and with much less vibration on your hands. We can also use smaller bars that still have an effective weight to get into tight spaces.
@ScotlandsGold5 ай бұрын
15:27 you made your hydraulic press cry😅
@Eees-op8cd5 ай бұрын
Lol
@alexanderson12135 ай бұрын
Is that the hydraulic fluid seeping out? Or something else
@HalIOfFamer5 ай бұрын
@@alexanderson1213either that or possibly just grease for parts that have friction contact.
@NeeLiebernich5 ай бұрын
it sweats power
@PiercingSight5 ай бұрын
"I can do it, I promise! Please don't abandon me!" *repeatedly bounces ineffectively*
@KT-pv3kl5 ай бұрын
Id like to take a moment to appreciate the over 5000 years of metalworking tradition and the great leaps and advances that we as humans have made to come to a point where somebody in their shop can say "working with hardened steel is not that difficult". Even a few hundred years ago working left alone machining hardened steel would be almost impossible.
@mosubekore785 ай бұрын
"Working with tungsten is not so difficult" some vtubers 50 years from now
@slakteriet5 ай бұрын
who asked?
@marcosdly5 ай бұрын
@@slakteriet I did
@slakteriet5 ай бұрын
@@marcosdly no you didnt
@5isalivegaming725 ай бұрын
Carbide inserts will chew up just about everything you can get in the chuck 😂
@nguyendetecting5 ай бұрын
$800 is a Steele
@RealAndySkibba5 ай бұрын
It's actually a Tungsten
@Gobra55 ай бұрын
It's actual market price, so that joke doesn't even make sense, sad fail
@oriontherealironman5 ай бұрын
You spelled Borrow wrong
@FalconHgv5 ай бұрын
@@Gobra5"🤓"
@Gobra55 ай бұрын
@@FalconHgv I'm glad you got your glasses sorted bro
@michaelf7093Ай бұрын
Chemist here. That "smoke" you are seeing is WO3, tungsten trioxide. I wouldn't breathe that on a bet. It's not just smoking at that temp, it's burning. But very slowly. Also, how they make tungsten steels is not by melting the tungsten, but instead dissolving the tungsten into the steel melt. For tungsten carbide, you need an arc furnace. Yes, tungsten metal can be cut cold. It is commonly lathed.
@albertbahoogadinАй бұрын
Tungsten is actually really easy to machine, no special tooling required. In fact you really don't change anything feed and speed wise at all from mild steel. It 8s dense yes but not a super metal. Its advantage is heat resistance but it actually deforms pretty easily. Temperature aside there are way way better metals out there these days
@Hello-pz6hbАй бұрын
Wait that's why the tungsten welder has the inert gas flowing over the tip: it to keep it from smoking, right?
@quiettoni913Ай бұрын
@@Hello-pz6hbYes, it also stops the metal being welded from oxidising which would spoil the weld otherwise.
@tkermi14 күн бұрын
@@albertbahoogadinYeah, I don't get why he said on the video that it's a super metal, lol. You can use it in alloys that are "super metals", but not in a pure form like that.
@pandoratheclay5 ай бұрын
14:00 don’t do this at home *puts away hundreds of dollars worth power tools and block of tungsten that I totally have*
@MacroAggressor5 ай бұрын
Try tens to hundreds of thousands...
@whoshotashleybabbitt49245 ай бұрын
@@MacroAggressor he knows a guy that gets him great deals.
@rizkym29995 ай бұрын
You can do it outside your home
@Zeesneakyninja5 ай бұрын
That shot actually scared me
@HuckleberryHim5 ай бұрын
$200 bargain hydraulic press, AliBaba (user assumes all injury risk)
@andrewevenson26575 ай бұрын
I used to work in a steel foundry. We didn’t do anything with tungsten steel alloys, but I can tell you those arc furnaces can easily get above the melting point of tungsten. The walls of the furnace are lined with a silicon spray, and it gets eaten away at and dissolves in the liquid steel, and has to be recoated after every heat. The steel walls of the furnace have water flowing through them (though that’s more of an emergency measure if a chunk of silicon falls off the wall and exposes the steel wall to the inside temperatures). Even with the water lined wall, when a hot spot is exposed, it’ll glow red hot from the outside of the furnace and needs to be fixed immediately. Our furnaces were usually charged with 15-20 tons of molten steel at a time. We did large scale castings, and some of our castings were bigger than 10 tons for a single cast piece.
@Mr.Leeroy5 ай бұрын
Are those with wires jumping from the amount of current flowing and requiring a power plant?)
@DeadeyeDaily5 ай бұрын
@@Mr.Leeroy Right?! Also, I've decided I like Alec Steele's following of smart people who make very smart comments based on ACTUAL expertise. 😄
@AlexJoneses5 ай бұрын
is that silicon coating why alot of cast irons have high silicon content?
@dedompler5 ай бұрын
what a dangerous job. glad that's past tense for ya
@halbronk71335 ай бұрын
I don't know if this is true of tungsten and steel, but some alloys can be made below the melting point of one of their ingredients. It basically dissolves in the other metal.
@stejclfc5 ай бұрын
I love Alex warned us not to do this at home, as if the average person might have a massive power hammer knocking about and a £1000 cube of Tungsten XD. Great videos, entertaining as always xxx
@EliJustChillin4 ай бұрын
Holy cow I haven’t seen one of these videos in years. Last thing I remember was the making of Nickel/copper Damascus, I think that was like 5 years ago. Good to see this channel still up and running ❤
@nathanielpoulter6035 ай бұрын
As a general rule of thumb most metals can be "hot worked" at around the same temperature that they can be sintered or annealled. This is usualy around 0.4-0.6 times their homologus melting temperature (the absolute temperature measured in kelvin). For tungston this would be 1205C-1944C so you should be pretty close. Some metals like lead are at this temperature at "room temperature" so they can be "forged" at room temperature of colder. This is the temperature where the kinetic energy of atoms due to their temperature becomes large enough for them to jump out of their lattice sites and diffuse throughout the crystal. Defects start anihilating and new crystals nucleate and replace stressed crystals (recrystalization) to lower the free energy of the metal by releiving stress and making "brand new" crystals with no imperfections. Tungston melts at a very high temperature but it is pretty chemically reative (it isn't stable as a reduced "pure" metal) and quickly reacts with gasses in the atmosphere. When it reacts to form oxygen the tungston oxide created has a much lower melting temperature and the molten oxide drips away exposing more metal to react with the air. If you've tried tig welding with no gas you will see something like this. When you put tungston into molten steel it will make a liquid at a pretty low temperature compared to its metling point. This is because alloys of things will generally "melt" at lower temperatures than pure things. For example salt dissolves into water in small amounts at room temperature, but pure salt melts at about 800 degrees celcius. Iron with different amounts of carbon melts at different temperatures and the lowest melting point is about 4% carbon at about 1200C (which we call cast iron because its so easy to melt). In general this is true because the increase in configurational entropy from additional solute is greater in the liquid phase then the solid phase (liquids are more random than solids this is why they exsist when you heat stuff up and everything starts moving around, adding different types of chemicals in makes it more random and so an alloy will be liquid at a lower temperature). Unless the mixture forms really strong bonds between atoms like sodium and chloride melting at the previously mentoined 800C when sodium would melting in a hot cup of tea and chlorine would be a gas in a deep freezer. Would be interesting to so the tungston welded in thinner peices (even steel is hard to weld when its that thick). Polarity of the welder would be important to keep the electrode from melting while the workpeice melts. Edit: I went and found the self diffsuion coeffceints for tungston and calculated the diffusivity as a function of temperature and it looks like it really takes off well after 2000C and I think the oxidation would be pretty bad at that temperature. And this is over the oxides melting temperature so forging tungston in atmosphere doesn't seem likely to me. Also the smoking that alex was shocked by is probably the beginings of this oxidation. Maybe theirs a clever way to heat it electrically and forge it under argon.
@BioTechproject275 ай бұрын
Iirc, adding to what u said: Since it reacts with oxygen, it mainly forms tungsten trioxide (WO₃), which partially evaporates (boiling point at ~1700°C/2000K), (maybe also reacting with the moisture in the air forming tungstic acid [or rather, tungsten trioxide monohydrate]?), hence the white smoke. But yeah, that was quite an unhandy, thick piece. Maybe cutting it into thinner pieces and forging them could work? Also idk much about forging, but a higher temperature e.g. with an oxy-acetylene torch may help (also may help keep the piece warm and malleable)?
@putteification5 ай бұрын
*Töngstin
@richardbrooksshnee5 ай бұрын
Same way you handle titanium just a hotter forge.
@NigelTolley5 ай бұрын
@@jiranchhetri8863 Thanks, 4o!
@TheSilverShadow175 ай бұрын
I thought Tungsten had an even higher melting point than that since it could withstand temperatures up to 7000°C
@KGTiberius5 ай бұрын
📍 Tungsten micro folding knife 📍 Tungsten shavings in a steel Damascus 📍 Tungsten logo marking stamp 📍 Tungsten hammer 📍 Tungsten sword Pommels! The extra weight counterbalances an extra long sword.
@fanculo6195 ай бұрын
add guitar pick and bottle opener.
@ImTheReal5 ай бұрын
A Damascus by using the tiny chips from machining it.
@andrewgolubiewski34635 ай бұрын
Tungsten hammer. Make that crazy density useful.
@wufflykins43695 ай бұрын
A tungsten counterweight is a fascinating idea - it's got me thinking about the other uses of tungsten in weapons. What other advantages you could gain? Part of me wants to see an axe forged with an inlaid tungsten carbide edge (sort of how older axes had carbon steel edges inlaid into wrought iron heads).
@KGTiberius5 ай бұрын
Melt a measured portion and lift the quench as it forms a large drop… use the shape as a base for the pommel. This tests melting and saves time on rounding the shape.
@DingleFlop5 ай бұрын
13:30 I HAD A HEART ATTACK!!!! Nothing like a multiple kilos piece of 1300 degree metal flying across the shop at high speed to check the condition of your heart!!!
@RTMP_5 ай бұрын
That’s one way to cure your mortality, I guess.
@vibaj164 ай бұрын
literal heart attack. It tried to attack his heart
@tungst4n5 ай бұрын
Never thought I'd be forged by Alec Steele himself! :)
@michellerondinone93985 ай бұрын
A little more info on the tungsten carbide cutters! The tungsten carbide is actually a powder, that is then mixed with often a cobalt or nickel based metal alloy powder. This mixture is then pressed into the shape of the tool, being a cutting insert or end mill, then sintered. This results in whats known as a "metal matrix", in this case, one with incredible hardness and heat dissipation.
@brendanseviltwin5 ай бұрын
There is that but also solid carbide endmills are ground from carbide stock and depending on what the tool is used for it gets chemically or gas treated to achieve a certain coating
@robertc495 ай бұрын
11:25 I think he covered that bit.
@SirLordBabyPeen5 ай бұрын
They do this because tungsten carbide (carbides and UHTCS in general) is extremely difficult to sinter by itself. The cobalt and nickel is really just the high temp bonding agent for the tungsten carbide media.
@Drungra5 ай бұрын
The slight forge ability makes me think that Alex should definitely come back to this in the future with some special equipment. Hotter forge, better PPE
@Eluderatnight5 ай бұрын
Induction heater with argon sheilding.
@calebmizener74155 ай бұрын
And maybe try making a tungsten/steel damascus bar using some of the shavings
@nunyabisnass11415 ай бұрын
One of the issues with tungsten is that it can burn at forging temps. So as it's heating up, it will also be burning off. So special furnaces are used when casting to keep oxygen out. I know there's a difference between forging temps and casting temps, but I'm not aware how far apart or how bad the oxidation problem will be at forging temps
@lethPointer5 ай бұрын
Radiation Heat alone would be absolutely terrifying
@jonmurraymurray55125 ай бұрын
@@nunyabisnass1141worked at a foundry that would cast molds made with the lost wax process in a vacuum to remove the air.....
@JackDespero5 ай бұрын
As a plasma physicist working on Tokamaks, I am very used to working with tungsten. If you have ever lift a slab of lead, which is surprisingly heavy, tungsten is 50% heavier than lead, so that small piece that looks like you can carry alone, you can't. Edit: Yep, and 9:31 is exactly what happens when you put it inside a Tokamak.
@KIKE.KAWASAKI5 ай бұрын
Does some kind of coolant flow through the inner walls of the Tokamak with this material?
@wisconsinatIon5 ай бұрын
Tungsten is NOT heavier than lead. W is 74 and Pb is 82, how can Tungsten be 50% heavier? I don't have a great deal of experience of W but as a member of a PlumBing family, I've melted a shitload of lead to drainage pipes.
@802Garage5 ай бұрын
@@wisconsinatIon "The density of lead is 11.34 grams per cubic centimeter (g/cm3)." "The density of tungsten is 19.254 grams per cubic centimeter (g/cm3), which is comparable to the density of gold and uranium."
@Klaeyy5 ай бұрын
@@wisconsinatIon the chemical atomic number has nothing to do with how densely an atom is packed or is packing with each other. There are way bigger atoms than Pb that have a lower density as well. Tungesten is way denser than lead and therefore heavier.
@vibaj164 ай бұрын
@@wisconsinatIon that's not how density works. That's just the mass of a single atom. The atoms get packed in different ways, and tungsten happens to pack very densely, like gold.
@levizetina82095 ай бұрын
15:29 what an awesome moment!!!!! guitars rocking crazy!!tungsten never giving up, this is high quality content right here, awesome music very compatible with the mood we should recognize
@tompotter87485 ай бұрын
As an engineer trying to understand ways to work with Tungsten -- this is exactly what I wanted to see, thank you it's actually extremely helpful!
@BirnieMac15 ай бұрын
Sintering and pressing
@tompotter87485 ай бұрын
@@BirnieMac1 No doubt that seems to be the optimal general-purpose method for mass-produced moldable geometry or less-workable alloys! But imagine you just need a single, simple bracket to hold some absurdly hot object. The required tooling (the custom die and press to mash the powder into shape) would kill the cost :( But, on the other hand, if it could be made with just a few operations to a piece or two of stock? I presume even in mass production that may often still beat pressing/sintering on cost! So for me, I'm very appreciative to be able to see _with my own eyes_ just exactly how the material responds to being sawed, cut, ground, drilled, milled, forged, and stamped... Honestly I was very impressed at how effective almost everything was! Game-changer. Even the least effective methods "worked" -- forging could be used to for example make bends in a bar or shape a sheet (though it may remain too brittle for much deformation), and even stamping could still apply a texture. It seems many, many parts can be made from pure tungsten without having to resort to pressing/sintering, which is fantastic because pure tungsten is almost the literal melting-point GOAT of any material of any kind in our universe that's known to man! Tungsten's element-symbol is W. And it's a pretty massive W if ya ask me ;) ^_^
@YuckFoutube-e1z5 ай бұрын
If you cannot see that this block is fake stop trying to be an engineer. It is not real as in not 100% real, it's an alloy.
@tompotter87485 ай бұрын
@@YuckFoutube-e1z There's nothing in the video that indicates to me anything of the sort. Tungsten is expensive, but it's not *that* expensive ... he can afford a 5kg cube; and most alloys are made to be stronger, not weaker, than pure tungsten.
@chappo81005 ай бұрын
@@tompotter8748 I can tell you won't get far in your 'engineering' career. Check that ego before it leads to depression.
@redmadness2655 ай бұрын
12:34 The smoke coming off of it is tungsten trioxide WO3 I wouldn't recommend breathing it in. The bluish color seen earlier is some other tungsten oxide called tungsten blue
@marcosrotllan3 ай бұрын
I suffered watching the whole video
@bobdole49165 ай бұрын
Would love to see a little series where you work your way through the advancements in metallurgy, going from the copper age to the bronze age to the iron age to the steel age. Just making the same part, like a knife, in all of them and showing how easy or hard it is to work with each metal and what the maintenance would be for each finished piece as it was used across its lifetime. Kind of a practical show of the history of metallurgy and forging.
@thomasbryan41665 ай бұрын
Now this is a cool idea. Make a knife or dagger from metal of each different era from the first metal blade to current
@AliothAncalagon21 күн бұрын
Really great work you are doing here. I am a mechanical engineer and always wondered about the properties of tungsten. Not because I actually suspected it to be some kind of hypermetal, but because its incredibly difficult to get any reliable information for it.
@OkiemElektroniki5 ай бұрын
12:34 - it's smoking because at this temperature it's alredy oxidizing. This is tungsten oxide, and it settles on everything that comes in contact with smoke. Similarly, if you break a lightbulb and then turn it on, filament will "burn out" producing this exact smoke. Great video!
@manyhammers59445 ай бұрын
Or forget to turn on the argon! Poof!
@E-BikingAdventuresАй бұрын
I'm guessing that's the reason for the inert gas in the TIG welder?
@E-BikingAdventuresАй бұрын
Zinc does that too.
@altoso1Ай бұрын
@@E-BikingAdventures it's used to protect the base metal and the tungsten from oxydation
@E-BikingAdventuresАй бұрын
@@altoso1 . yes i know. I watched the video and read the original comment.
@nikolamihaylov945 ай бұрын
I really appreciate that you've toned down the overly excited super high energetic way of working in these last 2 years, now it's just a joy to watch you try out and build stuff and explain the process more thoroughly and just being calm and composed about it. Keep it up man.
@chappo81005 ай бұрын
this was calm? its borderline unwatchable overexaggerated hype
@captnsking90795 ай бұрын
14:44 “Steele always goes in the rear” proceeds to make a phallic looking object 😂
@phillhuddleston94455 ай бұрын
I had to cut a 5/8" diameter round tungsten bar the other day and used a typical abrasive blade (aluminum oxide) in a three HP abrasive chop saw with a 7" blade and it took about four minutes to cut through it. This saw cuts Inconel like butter and low carbon steel effortless and it really struggled to cut the tungsten bar. Not only did it take a long time and require more pressure than typical but it ate up the 1/16" thick cutting disc and the cut was curved and angled which I've never seen with this saw. I switched to a diamond blade which cut it in half the time but it only cut two pieces before wearing out though it wasn't new it only had a little wear to it and the second new blade cut two more and didn't have much life left after that. I had to face these pieces in a lathe and after the cutting experience I was surprised to find that they cut about the same as a tool steel, not bad at all using a carbide inserted tool. I tried to cut it with a carbide inserted cutoff blade in the lathe and it kind of worked but it was slow and took a lot of pressure, after cutting one piece the second piece broke the insert along with the end of the bar off. It seems that they almost get harder as heat builds up as in abrasive cutting but if you keep it cool it cuts fairly easily. I wonder if this would have deformed more had it been kept at room temperature?
@PinkBroBlueRope5 ай бұрын
13:32 I actually screamed. That could have marked you for life. It's insane that your immediate reaction was just mad laughter. You are terrifying
@wiwigt36175 ай бұрын
If you are lucky ledeinfrost effect might save you
@MrBenstero5 ай бұрын
That was a stress laugh from what happened 100%. He was laughing that nothing bad happened.
@TheSmallzfry5 ай бұрын
You can hear his voice catch when he says "Don't do this at home", I think it hit him how close he was to serious harm.
@uclamordsith5 ай бұрын
my heart skipped a beat. literally jumped back.
@MrPinguinzz5 ай бұрын
You can cut that laugh out of the video and use it as a mad laugh from the joker or something
@MaxPoulter-q9m5 ай бұрын
Designer for Formula One here. We use tungsten a lot for counterweights and ballast. This probably isn’t pure tungsten but a tungsten heavy metal alloy (check out AMS 7725). It’s a sintering of ~95% tungsten in a slurry of Nickel iron or copper. It’s the slurry which makes it quite easy to machine as the tungsten never truly fuses together. Making pure tungsten is practical impossible due to the melting point
@Falcrist5 ай бұрын
I have a cube EXACTLY like this that's 1.5 inches on a side (exactly 1 kg btw). You're absolutely correct. This is 95% tungsten and it's sintered. The seller probably provided this information and Alec ignored or missed it.
@flyingfetus43645 ай бұрын
Do we not have forges that can reach it's melting point?
@Falcrist5 ай бұрын
@@flyingfetus4364 Pure tungsten melts at 3,422°C (6,192°F), which is the highest melting point of any metal. What are you making the heating elements out of? The only way you're melting it is by running stupid amounts of electric current through it, and that won't last long.
@enlightendbel5 ай бұрын
@@flyingfetus4364 how do you think it became a nice 95% alloyed perfectly square block?
@emefff5 ай бұрын
Partly correct. Counterweights in crankshafts etc. are mostly W/Cu liquid sintered materials, only the copper melts and 'solders' the pure tungsten particles together. Therefore it is easily machineable as only the W-particles are 'pulled' out of the matrix. But: depending on the particle size, you'll never get a smooth surface. "Making pure tungsten is practical impossible due to the melting point": this is certainly not true. Pure tungsten is not fully melted during production, it is sintered in H2 atmosphere under high pressure (the raw material is a W-oxide powder, the H2 removes the O). This limits the possibilities for the geometry of your material. Practically, pure tungsten is almost always only available in rod shape. The reason being the usual production route for 100 years was rod --> drawing the rod --> wire --> light bulb. The reduction rate per drawing step in diamond dies, limited by forces and brittleness of tungsten (the light bulb wire was in fact K-doped tungsten) was only about -11%.
@Hawk0135 ай бұрын
There's this fun process called "atomic hydrogen welding" were hydrogen gas is passed through an arc between two tungsten electrodes. THe hydrogen is cracked into rather high energy m̶o̶l̶e̶c̶u̶l̶a̶r̶ atomic hydrogen in the arc, then recombines when it hits the cooler metals you are trying to weld, dumping all the excess energy as heat. Temps can get up to 4000C and it was used do weld tungsten fairly effectively.
@paradiselost99465 ай бұрын
not many people know about that one anymore... even less have done it! it finds certain industrial applications...
@PedroFigueiredo-q9x5 ай бұрын
The hydrogen molecule H2 is cracked into H atoms, not " high energy molecular hydrogen"
@arthurmoore94885 ай бұрын
Problem is hydrogen embrittlement. It's such a major concern in industry that there are specific welding rods that are low hydrogen and have to be baked to remove all the water.
@Hawk0135 ай бұрын
@@PedroFigueiredo-q9x Lol you got me there, should have been "atomic" instead of "molecular".
@PedroFigueiredo-q9x5 ай бұрын
@@Hawk013 Thanks. But how have they made thin lamp filaments for eons?
@kevinjohanson57183 ай бұрын
Tungsten alone can be ground fairly easily compared to carbides and hardened steels. Its really dense and can take alot of heat without deforming or melting…the reason its used as an electrode for tig welding. As a former tanker in the US Army, folks ask me why a particular type of round we shot was depleted uranium and not tungsten since they are about as dense, tungsten breaks when you hit it too hard so it tends to spall outside whereas dp self sharpens as it penetrates. We do use tungsten rounds, but only for training and tungsten carbide in the canister (antipersonnel) shot.
@JanasV5 ай бұрын
By adding tungsten to already melted steel - not only a physical, but also a chemical reaction occurs, where the two metals start mixing before the tungsten fully starts melting, effectively lowering its melting point. Edit: "Chemical change" is a better term here than a "chemical reaction".
@jeanladoire41415 ай бұрын
Yeah molten metals dissolve each other fairly easily, i've melted copper with tin. Just drop tin on copper and heat it up, the copper will be dissolved by the tin way before it's even red hot
@ParadigmUnkn0wn5 ай бұрын
@@jeanladoire4141 it's not a chemical reaction, it's just dissolving like salt or sugar dissolving in water.
@JanasV5 ай бұрын
@@ParadigmUnkn0wn Which is a chemical reaction :) Edit: "chemical change" is a better term here.
@jeanladoire41415 ай бұрын
@@ParadigmUnkn0wn yes indeed, they don't form a chemical compound they just blend together, probably forming an eutectoid that melts easier than both metals
@Eluderatnight5 ай бұрын
Yup, molten aluminum will eat a steel crucible.
@Nerivean5 ай бұрын
13:32 an industructible piece of metal flies towards you at 1300 ºC Alec Steele: *LAUGHS LIKE THE JOKER*
@GeekOfArabia5 ай бұрын
Sometimes laughing is the only response to the realization that you very nearly could have died.
@Nerivean5 ай бұрын
@@GeekOfArabia I would have laughed like the joker too kek
@ItsMeYush5 ай бұрын
Making a tungsten axehead would be awesome
@NOTSOSLIMJIM5 ай бұрын
It would crack. Inconel is much better
@andyanderson21435 ай бұрын
It's the exercise of the thing! How about a super dense ball peen hammer?
@laan19565 ай бұрын
Too brittle
@nightmarejr5 ай бұрын
Timothy Dickerson
@memyselfandeye12345 ай бұрын
@@nightmarejr Timothy Dyck ... no? Canadian Blacksmith - Making A TITANIUM HAMMER
@twostroke3505 ай бұрын
Seems like you should make something which takes advantage of its unreasonably high density. Like a very small but oddly heavy peening hammer? An automatic touch mark stamp, so like an automatic centre punch but using the high mass of the tungsten as the internal hammer to really whack the end in hard. In industry, you commonly use tungsten as a bucking-bar to hold on the back of rivetts as you form them or for panel beating.
@johnmcwick15 ай бұрын
I would make a weight from tungsten for long drive for truckers. Use it to do simple workouts and takes up little space while in use. Even a 10lb weight would be better than nothing.
@wallacechui98575 ай бұрын
Despite being very hard, tungsten is very brittle. You could use it in a hammer, but you would want to contain it like the filling in a dead blow hammer.
@TheSilverShadow175 ай бұрын
@@wallacechui9857 Yet it has the highest melting point of any metal in existence, which makes it great for forging as well as applications that revolve around intense heat, or plumbing.
@nicksmacro5 ай бұрын
I puckered super tight when the cube shot out of the hammer at 16:13. Good golly, how are you still alive kid?
@SouthpawDavey5 ай бұрын
I puckered harder when he said steele is always in the back door..
@ExperiMentalDon5 ай бұрын
Wrong timestamp.
@it.snowig5 ай бұрын
13:30
@thomast77484 ай бұрын
The diagonal press was even scarier, this kid is crazy.
@grndkntrl5 ай бұрын
@14:41. "Steel(e) always goes in the rear...." 🤣🤣🤣
@cocodojo5 ай бұрын
Wait what? Does Mrs Steele hear what comes out of Alec's mouth when he's being loopy at the forge?
@wyw8765 ай бұрын
Oh, the merch possibilities! lol
@bramweinreder23465 ай бұрын
Title...
@Night-Jester5 ай бұрын
Congratulations a bot copied your comment ;)
@grndkntrl5 ай бұрын
@@Night-Jester Thanks for the heads up. Just reported the account for spam & scams, noting that the bio has a link to a site of dubious content.
@greenmarine55 ай бұрын
It's nice to see young gentlemen getting into the field keeping it alive
@falcorcrow5 ай бұрын
15:24 the press started sweating 😂
@abnnuzzinicholasclay6865 ай бұрын
That was a tear 😢
@falcorcrow5 ай бұрын
@@abnnuzzinicholasclay686 🤣
@ApoMaTu3aTop5 ай бұрын
The thing about tungsten is that it actually gets hardened every time you pull it out of the forge at bright yellow colour. You need to heat it up to cherry red then let it cool very slowly to make it softer. This will probably make it easier for cold forging, and certainly easier for machining, however I wouldn't try cold forging such a thick block for obvious safety reasons.Good luck! =)
@jorggamingcr4095 ай бұрын
15:27 Even the hydraulic press started sweating lol
@nashbellow5430Ай бұрын
I worked in a lab that specialized in making crystals from exotic metals. The way we would do this is by actually dissolving various metals in molten tin/lead/bismuth (few other metals work well in this area, but tin is the most commonly used). We would drop in various metals into the molten tin and watch it dissolve then form crystals with the other metals. Its a very similar process to making sugar crystals except you have 2k degree ovens and a 0 oxygen chamber for various toxic/reactive metals
@Pleiades721Ай бұрын
What was the function of that lab? Was it just throwing money away at research?
@nashbellow5430Ай бұрын
@Pleiades721 this was back when I was in college, the lab was through the chemistry/physics/engineering department research grants with TI being a major factor. As far as actual purpose, we were identifying and documenting crystalline structures with exotic properties that have applications in advanced electronics as well as quantum computing. We would create models of crystals in various softwares then try to create said crystals with our crucibles if we thought the properties of a specific crystal would be useful. I worked specifically on the crucible/heat curves side. The science that goes into this research is often used by large electronics manufacturers such as Samsung, Apple, and Texas Instruments as these crystals can help make more durable phone screens, more efficient processors/conductors, and even smaller transistors. On the more theoretical side, development of these crystals is also vital for research into quantum computing (I say theoretical since most people don't own a quantum computer). Properties such as superconductivity are not observable in most materials (or at least require specific extreme conditions). Some other real world applications for this sort of research include solid state radars, solar panels, and battery storage. Solid state and condensed matter physics is probably one of the most applicable fields to everyday life
@zacharywheeler9775 ай бұрын
I like how @ 15:29, the hydraulic press starts to sweat from trying to press the tungsten! 😂
@wayneswonderarium5 ай бұрын
Came here to say that 😂
@dragonwithamonocle5 ай бұрын
Many cultures at the end of the bronze age considered iron an inferior metal. Harder to work with, needed hotter forges, couldn't be melted down when it was damaged the same way bronze could. I would love to see you work with some of it, maybe make your own mix of copper and tin that would be fitting for a sword or dagger. And also it just has the coolest color to it. I think a proper bronze sword would be a beautiful piece to sell or display as well.
@Jake122205 ай бұрын
Bronze was far superior than iron until proper steel could be consistently made. The blades were sharper, it was less prone to shattering, it could be melted and cast without needing a lot of the working iron and lower quality steel needed, it was pretty simple so you didn't need a master smith to use it and it melted at lower temperatures. Even the best(less likely to explode but expensive)cannons were made from brass right up till the later 1800's when Krupp invented a process to produce reliable high quality steel steel to cast barrels from.
@johnathansaegal31565 ай бұрын
They scammed you! They took .5 kg of tungsten and alloyed it with 4.5 kg of .999 gold. You seriously got ripped off, Alec!
@marhawkman3035 ай бұрын
lol no... Gold would have turned to soup at that temperature. Steel turns into a marshmallow... gold would straight liquify.
@johnathansaegal31565 ай бұрын
@@marhawkman303 sigh
@hankj.wimbleton_gamer-madn24125 ай бұрын
@@johnathansaegal3156 wdym sigh ? give an actual answer
@marhawkman3035 ай бұрын
@bedankt007 Heh, you'd have to do some VERY careful sintering to alloy gold to tungsten. Also... I knew it was a joke, but I didn't think the joke was funny. :p
@Sneekypeaky5 ай бұрын
A terrible shame if ever there was one, however will he recoup his investment 😢
@jacobroling22875 ай бұрын
3:18 "So perhaps Jamie, whoever we bought this from replaced our tungsten with gold... and we've been scammed." Maybe my humour is broken but the seriousness in the delivery of that line had me laughing so hard holy. 🤣🤣
@redacirvinskaite91155 ай бұрын
yeah funny af
@marhawkman3035 ай бұрын
Well he'd have figured it out pretty quick when he tried melting it :p
@xero1105 ай бұрын
3:46 The refresh rate on that DRO is wild.
@djingiskhan45815 ай бұрын
Try heating it via induction. It's pretty easy to set up and it will get the metal to any temperature that you want, you have outlets with more than enough power to make it happen. Great video btw
@staticmaneuver5 ай бұрын
Freelance Baker here-tungsten is such a dope material, I came across it while trying to find ways to improve my baking equipment. Apparently, it’s used in all sorts of high-heat applications, and I’ve started using it to line my bread pans. It’s amazing-bakes everything evenly, and nothing sticks, even at the highest temperatures. I’m also looking into getting a tungsten rolling pin because it’s supposed to give perfect dough consistency thanks to its weight and durability. Honestly, it’s becoming a bit of a secret weapon in my kitchen. Anyway - awesome video, very cool to see you play around with it in a blacksmithing workshop!
@tomaspecl10825 ай бұрын
Is it safe for working with food? You can get lead poisoning, maybe tungsten poisoning is also a thing.
@fulstop_5 ай бұрын
@@tomaspecl1082 I would think that because of the durability of the metal even at high temperatures that it would not end up in food in the way that lead--a very soft metal--might. There is limited data about the effects of tungsten exposure because being exposed to high amounts is so rare. That said, there have been studies which showed adverse health effects in rats that were administered sodium tungstate orally, which is less robust than elemental tungsten and is water-soluble. Elemental tungsten does not react with water, acids, bases, or oxygen (unless it is literally red-hot); so in a baking application, it seems unlikely that the material would be stressed enough to pose any threat.
@tomaspecl10825 ай бұрын
@@fulstop_ but as far as I know elemental tungsten is not found in nature, its always in a compound, so it must be reactive
@ShiningDarknes4 ай бұрын
@@tomaspecl1082 There are plenty of elements not found alone in nature, heck iron, nickel, copper, tin, and a load of other commonly used metal ore are quite impure. Haemetite is the most desirable iron ore because it is generally 98% iron but iron is found in 4 forms: Haematite, Magnetite, Limonite and Siderite with Magnetite being the next most pure but it drops to 70-75% and the other 2 being minerals than contain several metals which is the main reason they are mined over something else. Nickel comes mostly from 2 sources Nickeliferous Limonite (yes the same stuff I just mentioned is one of the 4 main sources of iron) at less than 3% and Pentlandite which is much higher at around 34% but Limonite as mentioned is mined because it contains like 3 or 4 elements than can all be separated. Bornite at 64% and Chalcopyrite at 34% are the main sources of copper. Bauxite of course is the primary (and for the most part only commercially viable) source of Aluminium but it only has an Aluminium content of 15-25%. So an element not appearing by itself in nature means very little in terms of its reactivity. Tungsten, like many metals, it only exceptionally reactive at high heat (like with many "reactive" metals the red-hot point is generally when it becomes reactive). At any normal everyday temperature it is non-reactive and quite stable. In fact it is typically classified as non-reactive in any hazmat reference table/lab chemical safety datasheet. It is unaffected by most acids and bases and does not react with water or oxygen at room temperature or anywhere under 500C, so well above any normal baking temperature. It does react with oxygen somewhere between 500C and 1000C+ which forms Tungsten Trioxide, but that it is only classified as an irritant and not considered life-threatening/dangerous. In short: Tungsten is actually very food safe since it is unaffected by essentially anything that is safe for human consumption though it is advised not to cut or scrape it purely because than could cause some tungsten flakes to get in your food (not likely at all but hey some kitchen knifes are surprisingly hard) which isn't toxic but like any metal shavings in your food can cause micro cuts in your digestive tract which could cause discomfort and potential minor internal bleeding.
@crow91492 ай бұрын
If you are serving other people, you should *very* thoroughly disclose that you are using tungsten and that it may have unknown health effects.
@spamuel985 ай бұрын
I'm not a smith, but the science behind the properties of different materials can be fascinating. Tungsten is used as a filament for incandescent lightbulbs because it can handle heat EXTREMELY well, but density doesn't actually do too much for the strength of the material. The strength of a material comes from either the small scale structure of the material (most metals have a small, but not quite microscopic, mesh of crystals like the uneven grains of sand in an hourglass) and from the molecular structure of the material (spider's silk is super strong because it's a combination of tiny, rigid molecules held together with a super stretchy polymer, like plastic). Pure tungsten is pretty much like super condensed sand, it's usually found in compounds and has to be chemically extracted before it can be turned into a purified material, and on the atomic level it only has 2 valence electrons, which at the size of the atom means it physically can't bond with enough neighboring tungsten atoms to fill its valence electron shell in a perfect crystalline structure (the glue holding it together is basically Elmer's glue while most carbon compounds use super glue). Pure carbon compounds like graphite and diamond, however, are extremely brittle because they bond so tightly on a chemical level, which makes the physical structure less stable. Graphene is a material made by taking single molecule thick layers of graphite, which you can do at home with some scotch tape and pencil lead thanks to that weaker physical structure.
@cantek20245 ай бұрын
Tungsten filaments are doped with other oxides to prevent "creep" at high temperatures.
@hogandromgool20625 ай бұрын
I've looked into this too. It seems that if you can get the forge got enough to melt steel and create a puddle in the middle of the forge then place the tungsten inside of that puddle and leave it. The tungsten should absorb some of the steel making it an amalgam which effectively lowers the melting temperature BUT forms a harder product after the forge.
@CDCI35 ай бұрын
Alloy. Amalgams are specifically _mercury_ alloys.
@Vikingwerk5 ай бұрын
5:03 Probably in an Oxygen free furnace, they keep the oxygen out so the steel does not burn up in the over-heated state. A lot of special alloys (and recycling processes for that matter) use furnaces that are tuned to be oxygen free.
@RodrigoRistow-v5d14 күн бұрын
casually watching someone trying to forge tungsten at 3 AM... Quality content 👍 also, poor hydraulic press 😥
@joseph74715 ай бұрын
4:45 easily is my guess. I have a scrap recovery furnace. It's supposed to be able to melt copper but it just barely can't finish the job. But, if I drop a bit of aluminum in, the whole lump goes liquid in seconds as the liquid aluminum penetrates into the copper lattice. The resulting alloy is pretty cool: gold in color, tough like bronze, highly corrosion resistant. I've read that they the use aluminum bronze alloy to make boat propellers and dental crowns.
@jasonls2215 ай бұрын
16:02 kinda looks like a brick
@Lolin_HD5 ай бұрын
16:02 kinda looks like cubblestone
@bigfalconrocket4 ай бұрын
Would be cool to build a house with such bricks
@BrothernutSquash5 ай бұрын
This dude always surprises me with his raw strength. This dude handles The Cube with such ease, and even holds it out at arm’s length to show the camera without the slightest tremor.
@LecherousLizard5 ай бұрын
He has become fully accustomed to the intensity of its density.
@paganathiest63494 ай бұрын
i think the thing that impressed me was it's heat retension, like even after being worked there was barely any heat transfer between the col of both the hammer and the anvil and the block of hot tungsten
@brianhonaker5 ай бұрын
That was absolutely unhinged and amazingly entertaining! LOVE IT!!
@backspace123995 ай бұрын
14:03 I feel like Alec realizes no one’s gonna try this at home 😂awesome video
@denniswenn84295 ай бұрын
Tungtes is used for TIG welding and other high temp applications because its has one of the best thermal expansion coefficients, meaning it holds it orginal shape and size no matter how hot or cold it gets
@donvee20005 ай бұрын
It's not really a super metal per say. At least not in it's hardness. Titanium is much lighter and twice as hard. I have a watch band made of Titanium. It got damaged and had a burr getting snagged on clothes, so I tried to file it down with a big steel carbide file....the burr was the size of a pin head and it took me 20 minutes to get it smooth. I was amazed. But The melting point of Tungsten is 6100 F°...over twice that of of steel and almost twice that of titanium. Without it Edison would never if been able to make his. First bulb... They say he tried thousands of filaments before Tungsten.
@ThetaTuner25 күн бұрын
"What is the melting temperature of a Karen? Karen's usually have a melt down with 1 minor inconvenience."
@samphoenix16745 ай бұрын
alec out here pioneering dwarven hand forged items lmao nice
@Yoshikaable5 ай бұрын
He should make a powerful hammer
@insu_na5 ай бұрын
you could try with an induction forge.
@Yoshikaable5 ай бұрын
I think he actually has one and it would work great
@-danR5 ай бұрын
Do you mean an induction furnace? I don't know what an induction forge is.
@Yoshikaable5 ай бұрын
@@-danR yes that's correct. Im not sure if the tungsten works with induction but I imagine it might
@-danR5 ай бұрын
@@Yoshikaable There's a youtube video showing a small rod of tungsten in an induction coil solenoid. For a large cube of the stuff I don't know how that would work or if it would be too expensive.
@Yoshikaable5 ай бұрын
@@-danR fantastic! I hope Alec sees your reply and gives it another go with a smaller piece, though I doubt it will be tried again
@kriszeeck60115 ай бұрын
Can i forge tungsten or "I dont know how to get my steam hammer working soooooooooo try something".... LOL Love it ALEC!
@Yoshikaable5 ай бұрын
Work hard play hard!
@stubby_nub5 ай бұрын
yea this is a pretty low effort diversion
@master_nations5 ай бұрын
He said in the last video that he needed to find a boiler to feed the hammer?
@OgeiDennepeL5 ай бұрын
@@stubby_nubprobably needs more time to progress enough to make a full video for it,so instead of nothing he chose to do this bit of experimenting
@stubby_nub5 ай бұрын
@@OgeiDennepeL sure. personally, I wish he would have forged a knife or something else useful instead of playing with a block of tungsten. I miss the days of his content being full of blade smithing. I know the dude has other things going on, but since moving from montana, the content has become quite.....lame? Please do not get offended, this is just my opinion and should have no effect on you or anyone else reading this.
@slynkadink24162 ай бұрын
You can tell how nice someone really is when they have an unexpected moment during filming. No drama when the camera man sneezed mid sentence.
@MirAuch945 ай бұрын
I'd like to see it being made into a tiny anvil, but an axe head or a knife would be nice too. Though I think it could be big enough for multiple things
@dontknow38865 ай бұрын
Make it from depleted uranium
@patheddles40045 ай бұрын
@@dontknow3886 DU would make a terrible anvil tbh - it's hard and brittle, and the dust is highly toxic.
@dontknow38865 ай бұрын
@@patheddles4004 nah i meant for the axe if you swing it upwards of 1.5 km/s it might even self-sharpen as it goes trough the wood
@patheddles40045 ай бұрын
@@dontknow3886 ah right, that makes way more sense. That could work really well.
@SpazzyMcGee265 ай бұрын
NEXT PROJECT IDEA! Remove the iron from cereal and forge with it!!!!
@TheSudsy5 ай бұрын
Steel: Whelp i'm hot, squashed and look like a doughnut. Tungsten: I laugh at your press and hammers and have a nice warm fuzzy feeling
@MelosFerrum4 ай бұрын
As one who has taken a certification course in welding, and one who particularly enjoyed the TIG process, tungsten is a fantastic material considering that it can channel amounts of current that would melt any other metal and while doing so producing a clean and precise arc that I've heard described as "ghostly beautiful".
@quadrilaturalSamurai5 ай бұрын
Phone just gave you a new merch idea, "What's the melting Temperature of Cast Karen/Carrot(?)?", with that incredibly confused face. Part of me wants to wonder if a rubix cube can be made from that block.
@StrielokPLsz5 ай бұрын
4:50 tungsten is quite chemicly active metal and it dissolves in liquid iron, also did you notices that fine tungsten filaments exist? thats stuff is quite mallable, we used it to make lightbulbs ;) btw. try copper-tungsten alloy, excellent machinability also you can braze tungsten with steel using copper
@SuLokify5 ай бұрын
Used to use tungsten filaments, a power source, and liquid nitrogen to convert the filaments into a glass phase (aka amorphous metal), rapid rapid cooling removes the crystalline structure of the metal and gives it some useful properties. TIG welders will sometimes current sharpen their electrode and end up with an extremely sharp glass phase tip. Anyways it was really useful for making certain high voltage electromechanical components, we used it to create a tough material that would flex a certain way under high voltage and current
@russakasuperman5 ай бұрын
1:08- we sawr it in your hand, Alec.
@ghriszlybare25473 ай бұрын
I used to make tungsten carbide end mills. Its amazing just how sharp and dense those little bits really are
@charlesrovira57075 ай бұрын
@11:11 Tungsten melts at 3,422°C (6,192°F) Guide yourself accordingly. (You'll need an *_arc furnace._* Natural gas won't do.)
@agmhelena72665 ай бұрын
induction mayhaps?
@agranero65 ай бұрын
He does not need to melt it just to reach the brittle to ductile transition. A forge that melt the metal is useless. The brittle to ductile transition on tungsten depends on the crystalline structure and so on the method it was produced but so the literature is confusing about that is about 1300C. But even so it is still very hard, but pounding it won't break it. Even if he melts it and pour into a mold, very few mold will resist the temperature, even silica and graphite will have trouble at this temperature. In metals like Titanium, Osmium, Iridium and Tungsten syntherizing it if preferable.
@Pitchus903 ай бұрын
@agranero6 I think you need to know the melting point of the metal you want to work with. For example, iron has a melting point of 1538°C and when Alec heated the iron to 1300°C it was malleable. Therefore, tungsten which has a melting point of 3422°C, should be heated to approximately 3000°C in order to be malleable...
@agranero63 ай бұрын
@@Pitchus90 You need to know the brittle to ductile transition temperature that in some cased is dangerously near the fusion point.
@Revenge_of_Ming5 ай бұрын
technically speaking your tungsten carbide end mill is a metal matrix composite, its composed of tungsten carbide particles as the reinforcement suspended in a cobalt matrix, pure Tungsten Carbide is in fact a ceramic
@Ammoniummetavanadate5 ай бұрын
The not so fun fact with that is that if you drop your tungsten carbide wedding ring on a concrete floor it will shatter. Don't ask me how I know.
@pbe69655 ай бұрын
Kind of like aluminium oxyde can be considered a ceramic and is commonly used as abrasive, despite aluminium itself being a pretty soft metal and almost useless in its pure form. Just because it's derived from the same metal, doesn't mean it necessarily has comparable properties.
@Revenge_of_Ming5 ай бұрын
@@pbe6965 you can actually make a metal matrix composite from aluminium and aluminium oxide, you mix powdered forms of both and then sinter the mixture most MMC's are made in such a fashion
@pbe69655 ай бұрын
@@Revenge_of_Ming I wasn't trying to contradict you (english is not my mother langage so I might have conveyed the wrong idea), just giving another exemple :) The "Just because it's derived from the same metal, doesn't mean it necessarily has comparable properties" part was referring to the part of the video where he assumed tungsten would be very hard since carbide is, not to your answer.
@Revenge_of_Ming5 ай бұрын
@@pbe6965 I understand where you were coming from, none of what you said contradicted anything I said, I have a master's in engineering and am a bit of a geek when it comes to materials, you can actually have a ceramic matrix composite using much harder ceramic as a reinforcement and lower melting point ceramic as the matrix, engineering is wild, I've even seen a metal matrix composite with aluminium as the matrix and carbon fibre as the reinforcement, not such a good idea as galvanic corrosion can kick in pretty quickly
@NOTSOSLIMJIM5 ай бұрын
Ol'boy is trying to forge the tesseract
@DonMiller-Weiser3 ай бұрын
My machine shop used to make solenoid cores out of tungsten rods. We ran them on a CNC lathe with live tooling for secondary operations
@Halbostfriese5 ай бұрын
Titanium would be interesting to see, too! Careful with machining it, titanium chips are flammable.
@bobedwards88965 ай бұрын
titanium needs shielding gas when its heated
@DH-xw6jp5 ай бұрын
He has already forged titanium, made a small anvil while still in Montana.
@Eluderatnight5 ай бұрын
@@Halbostfriese ideally use HEM(climbcut/heat into chip) and flood coolant.
@benjaminshropshire29005 ай бұрын
Tungsten also burns well below it's melting point (that smoke when he pulled it from the forge was likely tungsten oxide. Titanium is even worse, and more energetic.
@Halbostfriese5 ай бұрын
@@DH-xw6jp I completely forgot about that lol
@codymcfarland52065 ай бұрын
it would definitely be interesting to see if there is any difference in hardness after you have tried to forge it.
@Da-Real-Gigachad5 ай бұрын
you can't show us this magical material without making a knife out of it, please at least attempt make a tungsten knife for us.
@Sman72905 ай бұрын
It would be a lousy knife.
@Da-Real-Gigachad5 ай бұрын
@@Sman7290 so? It would be fun to watch.
@taliemarais54175 ай бұрын
He made n kitchen knife out of gold... @@Sman7290
@peacechief2 ай бұрын
Great video! Great contrast between the steel and the tungsten!
*Spends 800 beans on a block of tungsten to test stuff *Has tungsten TIG electrodes that could have tested in the same way
@sleeptyper5 ай бұрын
If those TIG rods are of the thoriated variety, you *don't want* thorium dust anywhere near your lungs.
@SabinBabblatchu5 ай бұрын
@@sleeptypermost are thoriated or other rare earth, but I think the Blue tip has no heavy metals besides tungsten
@LaughingOrange5 ай бұрын
The cube makes for a better thumbnail and viewing experience.
@kevinliston3 ай бұрын
Hey Mr Steel I've been watching your videos for some years and this for me is the best one you've made. Do more experiments, Kev,
@nunyabiznez81205 ай бұрын
Tungsten alloys and pure tungsten are manufactured in a oxygenless furnace. The furnace is open at the end, gas is pumped in and burns where the oxygen in the air and the gas mix, the gas pressure keeps the oxygen out. The tungsten is in a powdered form when you prepare it to alloy. You press the tungsten in a special mold to make a pressed powder bar. I remember that copper and silver alloys would just have the metals in pellet form and would be sucked into the powdered bar by capillary action in the furnace. Pretty awesome to watch. The furnace would get hot enough to fuse the tungsten into a solid bar with the alloyed material. I don't remember how they used to make tungsten/iron alloys for certain, but I think it was all powdered, mixed extremely well, pressed and then fired.
@ericcutler84445 ай бұрын
My father was a mold maker and many years ago he worked for my grandfather. My grandfather was a notoriously difficult boss. He was angry one day and needed to yell at someone so, he chose my father who it should be noted trolled his father a lot. My grandfather picked up a piece of tungsten that was on my father’s bench and ordered him to “do something with this!” My father made a set of darts. when the old man found out he nearly lost his mind 😂 so I say in honor of my father you should make something useful but ultimately frivolous
@jamescomstock72995 ай бұрын
A dart set made from tungsten sounds amazing!
@ericcutler84445 ай бұрын
@@jamescomstock7299 Supposedly he used the set to some success and then he sold them and that just angered the old man more. No one could get that man angrier than my dad.
@blahorgaslisk77635 ай бұрын
@@jamescomstock7299 I had one some years back. It was designed to be extra heavy while not physically any larger than normal darts. They were really too heavy for me but as I had payed for them I learned to put some more strength into it. Really changes the throwing strength needed.
@YuckFoutube-e1z5 ай бұрын
@@jamescomstock7299 They have been made for friggin years, try again.
@tymz-r-achangin5 ай бұрын
3:38 "Jamie, it's bloody doing it! I cant believe it!" Well NO SCHIT the tungsten carbide cutters are cutting the tungsten carbide block. You already PROVEN without ANY DOUBT that the cutters are WAY harder than the block!
@zweihanderpancakes18555 ай бұрын
If you're working with smaller-scale pieces of tungsten, the best way that I know of is using an induction heater. They're not that hard to build, and the heat output is only limited by how much current you can put through it, so you could get it hot enough to completely liquefy tungsten if you had the amperage to spare. The catch is that the piece of tungsten has to fit through the rings on the heater, which limits the size of the piece you can work with severely, and it's a different process because of heat distribution (the surface will heat faster than the core, so if you want to stop short of just turning the entire piece into a puddle, you have to heat in cycles to allow the heat to disperse throughout the work). Bit of a different experience, and it's certainly not conventional blacksmithing, but it can be done.
@xenomancer15 ай бұрын
Sintered tungsten has up to a couple percent iron in it by weight to aid with fusing. This is one of the ways that a gold scam can be detected easily. Sintered tungsten will attract a magnet due to the iron content. Gold will not. Try using an arc furnace or just raw electric current to heat the tungsten cube. That should get your cube hot enough to deform more easily. Just be wary that the oxidation will be worse. That is what the smoke you observed was. Tungsten will readily react with oxygen in the air at high temperature. Thankfully, the reaction is not energetic enough to keep a large piece of material like the cube caught on fire. It could, however, keep small chips lit on fire if hot enough. Also, if the cube is hot enough to deform easily then it will also be hot enough to damage some of your tools, such as the tongs used to hold it in place. It is also a good idea to wear welding shades since the heat it radiates could damage the eyes nearer to the melting point. If you have an aluminum heat suit then you should use that, too. You don't want to give yourself a weird sunburn.
@clankplusm5 ай бұрын
tbh who would scam tungsten for gold, its the other way around, gold is way more valuable (though tungsten is expensive), the information is still useful in gold buying though! They would get 10 grams of gold for the value of this 5kg cube
@quakesilver5 ай бұрын
someone please scam me with 5kg blocks of tungsten that has been replaced with gold, i won't report you. in fact i'd even buy more, thanks
@Ammoniummetavanadate5 ай бұрын
There is an open access review paper from some gentlemen in the UK going into the forging and processing temperatures and procedures for pure tungsten. Advanced Processing and Machining of Tungsten and Its Alloys by Samuel Omole, Alexander Lunt, Simon Kirk, and Alborz Shokrani. 2022 paper published in JMMP volume 6 issue 1. I can't post a link here but you should be able to find it. Gist: 1500-1700C with one group hitting it with 2500. 1700C is within the range of a MoSi2 resistance furnace which are very simple to operate.
@spdcrzy5 ай бұрын
Wouldn't an induction furnace help?
@Ammoniummetavanadate5 ай бұрын
@@spdcrzy That is what I would use, I have gotten to about 2600C in my big furnace at work, under argon of course.
@spdcrzy5 ай бұрын
@@Ammoniummetavanadate I'm surprised Alec didn't think of that, honestly.
@jmoilahan99815 ай бұрын
00:15 What is heavier: five kilogrammes of tungsten or five kilogrammes of steel? That's right. Five kilogrammes of tungsten.
@ushiocheng5 ай бұрын
donno what you are getting at but this topic is fun. 5kg of tungsten does indeed weight more than 5kg of steel since mass does not account for air displacement but weight do. ie 5kg of tungsten is of less volume so the buoyancy caused by air displacement is less. so weight-on-earth-at-STP-and-the-same-place wise it is indeed slightly heavier 😂
@ahmedmani10515 ай бұрын
@@ushiocheng 5kg of feathers
@moonsun98885 ай бұрын
5 kilograms is 5 kilograms, it’s like saying which is heavier, five pounds worth of rocks or five pounds worth of feathers
@LSWoOz5 ай бұрын
@@moonsun9888 5 pounds of Feathers are heavier because you've gotta kill a lot of chickens to get 5 pounds of feathers. That weighs on a soul.
@candyman47695 ай бұрын
@@moonsun9888did you not read the first reply to this comment
@racke63364 ай бұрын
Tungsten is required for some "big rulers" that are used in measuring height-differences in construction, because it doesn't really change size depending on most temperatures, meaning that if you're measuring something over the course of a day (with different temperatures during the day) you won't have any differences from that. This is usually for projects where "1mm uncertainty over 1km distance" isn't really an acceptable margin for error, so... something of a niche.
@SteveJones3135 ай бұрын
Two questions: 1 - What could you do with the Tungsten shavings/dust? 2 - What if you cut the Tungsten into smaller/thinner pieces?
@856Dropout5 ай бұрын
I believe the tungsten dissolves into the steel at high temps. Like CO2 into water (soda) or acetylene into acetone.
@T3sl45 ай бұрын
This; it also helps that tungsten is easily prepared in powdered form (e.g. hydrogen reduction of oxide powder), and just blending that with some iron, pressing into a pellet, and sintering/melting that, will disperse it pretty quickly. Let me see here... up to about 15%at (36.7%wt), W in Fe, it's readily soluble, beyond which the liquidus rises beyond 1900K. So that would be a simple way to prepare tungsten master alloy. Even down at 1100K, the solid-state solubility isn't bad, a couple percent; kinda reminiscent of the Fe-C system. Incidentally, "like CO2 into water" occurs in metallurgy just as well. Brass has a large fraction of Zn, yet is poured above Zn's boiling point; Mg is dosed into cast iron (albeit only a very tiny amount) to induce nodular iron formation (ductile iron). Mn also has a fairly low boiling point (only a bit above Fe MP). Zn even forms reasonable alloys with Fe (or, by the looks of it anyway), though I don't know any have commercial importance. Regular gasses of course have various solubility, H2 being of particular concern for many alloys, and O2 for noble metals (Cu, Ag..); or how iron scale itself can be seen as an alloy between Fe, FeO, Fe3O4 and Fe2O3.
@leftaroundabout5 ай бұрын
Actually more like salt dissolves into water.
@StarScapesOG5 ай бұрын
Look up: malleability of tungsten in relation to temperature. You may find some interesting graphs.
@crackedemerald49305 ай бұрын
is it crazy and has dips in unexpected places?
@CannyFish3 ай бұрын
the hydraulic press shivering in the tungsten's pressence 😂
@GethOverlord5 ай бұрын
On today's episode of "Why we make and use tungsten carbide instead of just leaving it as tungsten" another point is proven.
@megadon25 ай бұрын
9:00 I am quite curious as to how the cube melted a little, but the rod didnt at all
@discmaniastudios5 ай бұрын
Surface area
@DS-xg9kf5 ай бұрын
@@discmaniastudiossurely the tip is the smallest surface area? 🤷
@lolplayfelix-_-27135 ай бұрын
prolly the argon cooling the rod down cuz its coming along, it being heated wont cool the cube as much
@Rose_A5 ай бұрын
It's gold? 😂
@devoblanco13374 ай бұрын
It may be because of the direction of flow of electricity. ^ someone mentioned the argon could be keeping it cooler