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manualoverride@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

I really wanted to use Tungsten as the base ballast for a custom narrowboat, for better headroom. Other than the cost you also have the problem of tungsten’s melting point being so high you can’t pour it into a boat hull without melting through.

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finitebanjo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
You also can’t melt it in general outside of some high tech magnetic field induction chambers, as doing so would melt the furnace in most cases.

Almost all industrial applications of tungsten involve electrochemistry or otherwise the mixing of fine tungsten dust.

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Jon_Servo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Aircraft use tungsten ballast plates. I know it requires hardware, but would that have been viable?

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- manualoverride@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Possible but the expense ruined my plans in the end… I did consider collecting broken tungsten end mills and inserts from machine shops and throwing them in molten lead, like croutons in a lead soup.
  
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  - captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    If I understand it right, you’d get mostly cobalt that way. Carbide tooling isn’t solid tungsten or silicon carbide but carbide powder embedded in cobalt.
    
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