2/10 Prize 8/10 Prize if delivery is included
I can put it in the front yard, spray paint it gold, and start a neighborhood cult around The Cube.
The grand prize
Submitted 6 months ago by The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b7dec66d-b4e9-4ced-b72b-d050d3da58ee.jpeg
Comments
Sabata11792@ani.social 6 months ago
Wogi@lemmy.world 6 months ago
You ain’t putting it anywhere. It’s getting delivered and staying where they put it.
A single 5 foot cube of tungsten would weigh about as much as an above average sized single family home.
Sabata11792@ani.social 6 months ago
I assume dumped on the yard would be the only delivery option.
Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world 6 months ago
That cube would be in the neighborhood of a 1 million dollars of tungsten
weker01@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
That is surprisingly little. Are you sure?
Sabata11792@ani.social 6 months ago
I’m betting I got it a few months before someone can gather the equipment to steal it. It would have outlived its novelty and likely be a burden at that point. If the cult works out The Cube should be self sufficient and could even become a profitable local attraction.
ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 6 months ago
How does one join the cult for The Cube?
Sabata11792@ani.social 6 months ago
One must simply gaze upon the glory of The Cube. The Cube will invite you in, keep you warm, keep you safe. The Cube welcomes all. The Cube just wants to share.
mariusafa@lemmy.sdf.org 6 months ago
Holy shit Tom is rich now! If he can move it though.
lowleveldata@lemmy.world 6 months ago
How did they put it on the stage?
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Spawned it in with a console command.
stupidcasey@lemmy.world 6 months ago
This could possibly be the worst possible prize. Raw tungsten isn’t actually that expensive. What’s expensive is working with it as it melts 3,410c (6,170f) isn’t very malleable and is heavy like really really heavy to move this block you will probably need larger equipment than standard industrial moving equipment, bigger trucks and loaders also you’ll need to get the city’s permission to haul it on the roads , that alone is probably going to cost more than the cube is worth you will then have to pay a monthly storage fee until someone wants to buy it. Shouldn’t be that long right? It’s a valuable metal… well good luck finding a company that works with tungsten outside of china, and you absolutely can not ship it. But let’s assume you find someone who wants it(at a considerable discount) well now you have to higher the specialized movers again.
TriflingToad@lemmy.world 6 months ago
but what if I want one 🥺
don@lemm.ee 6 months ago
too bad, no giant cube of tungsten 4 u
stupidcasey@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Then good news you can buy it! But you’ll have to commission it’s very specialized construction, and pay to have it shipped across seas… you know that thing I said you absolutely could not do, well with money all things are possible.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
I wonder if there’s a foundry in the world with a crucible that can hold, melt, and pour that much tungsten? To make a 5 foot solid cube.
jimbolauski@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Rocket nozzles are commonly made of tungsten, there are more than a few manufacturers in the US. Drill bits can be made of tungsten carbide. Armor piercing weapons use tungsten too. All of these have industries in the US.
Wogi@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Drill bits are coated in tungsten carbide. Sometimes. There are a variety of coatings.
The drill bits you’re buying at the big box store are high speed still with some kind of coating to help them last a little longer. The specialty drill bits you’re buying for working on metal are also HSS with a different coating and probably different tip geometry.
End mills are milling/lathe inserts can be HSS or carbide, also with some tungsten coating. Importantly, these are sintered, and made out of dust.
Tungsten carbide is waaaay too brittle to work as a drill bit.
crank0271@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Spoken like a true tungsten connoisseur.
smokebuddy@lemmy.today 6 months ago
Don’t forget having to pay income tax on the original retail value of the cube (assuming this is USA where lottery and prizes are taxable gains)
Deepus@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Can you expand on why it can’t be shipped?
don@lemm.ee 6 months ago
The Catholic Church passed an edict worldwide banning the shipping of tungsten cubes larger than half a cubic meter in volume
CheezyWeezle@lemmy.world 6 months ago
That would violate the Treaty of Versailles
CybertoothTiger@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Real answer is that it’s obscenely heavy
Maalus@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Secret clause in the Molotov - Ribbentrop pact
Woovie@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It’d weigh 75 tons assuming that to be 5ft x 5ft x 5ft
bitchkat@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It looks like panels on a frame and not solid tungsten.
donuts@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I unironically want this
EleventhHour@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Me too. It’s worth over $1 million.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 6 months ago
But the guy above said fif… You know what, I’ll do $1 million.
merari42@lemmy.world 6 months ago
NCD would probably be delighted to have something that can be turned into multiple rods from god
chickenf622@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
You know those degens would also use those rods as a sex toy.
Zwiebel@feddit.org 6 months ago
Assuming that’s a meter qubed it weighs 19 tons
logos@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
I’m seeing $30,000 per ton there (as of 2018) so wouldn’t the cubic meter cost about $640,000?
andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
It’s being teleported to your location as we speak. I hope you don’t mind it would redesign a couple of floors below you.
Monument@lemmy.sdf.org 6 months ago
If I had one of those in my living room, my house would collapse.
Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net 6 months ago
SomeGuy69@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I’d want to put this in front of the house. No one would steel it ever. lol
bitwaba@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Of course not. It’s tungsten. Not steel.
manualoverride@lemmy.world 6 months 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.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 6 months 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.
Jon_Servo@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Aircraft use tungsten ballast plates. I know it requires hardware, but would that have been viable?
manualoverride@lemmy.world 6 months 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.
Moah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 months ago
Sounds like a Peter Molyneux game. “And if you click on the cube, you might win another cube”
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Let’s say that cube is 4.5’ a side. That’s 91.125 cu ft. Tungsten weighs 1,201.738 lb/cu ft. Which means the cube weighs 109,508.38 lb.
That’s an impressively sturdy floor.
Currently, tungsten is selling at about $340 USD/ton.
The block weighs 54,754.19 tons.
So this is indeed a fantastic prize at $18,616,425 USD.
All you have to do to claim your prize is get it home.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 6 months ago
You divided by 2 instead of 2000 on your pounds/tons conversion.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 6 months ago
BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
My immediate response was to do the same calc. But using SI units, because I don’t live in Myanmar or the USA.
I figure that it’s a cube, and judging by the size of the lucky winner, I would guess that the sides are 1.5m. 3.375m^3 at 19.254 g/cm^3 is roughly 65 tons. According to www.metal.com/Tungsten/202212260004 tungsten bars are trading for 49USD/kg. IDK where you got 340 USD/ton, but we seem to differ.
65 tons at 49 USD/kg is 3’185’000 USD.
I’d say that a solid homogeneous of tungsten should probably fetch a fair bit more than my price. Casting a cube like that is not going to be easy. Tungsten is rather reactive in the molten form, and has to be kept from air. Just alone keeping 65 tons of molten tungsten under a protective layer of inergen gas is going to be challenging.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 6 months ago
No idea why the difference in price. I checked again and it still shows $340/ton on a UK site, another shows $335/ton, some higher for powders or carbide, some way lower for scrap.
LouNeko@lemmy.world 6 months ago
God, I want to drop this thing from Orbit on a populated city so much.
skibidi@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Dropping anything in orbit just means it is still in orbit.
You’d need a lot of fuel to deorbit that cube on a steep trajectory.
vinyl@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Wouldn’t it be easy to account for the forwards momentum and just lead on the shot?
dan@upvote.au 6 months ago
I like how there’s so many comments about the value of the cube, and no two comments have the same value.
Piemanding@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
I mean if you get it in bulk it might be cheaper… but at the same time that would probably be really hard to make and take a major portion of the tungsten supply to make.
Buffalobuffalo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
I only buy my tungsten cubes on black Friday, you’re a sucker otherwise.
Blaster_M@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Just imagine plackng this in the front yard as an ornament and watching it sink into the ground from its weight.
n3cr0@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The cube is so heavy, it presses a hole into the floor.
zbyte64@awful.systems 6 months ago
Please deliver this to my moon base
Squeezer@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I have a cube of tungsten at work that is 40mm x 40 mm, it is comedically heavy. This thing would be nuts.
AugustWest@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I have a cube
That is 40mm x 40mm
Shardikprime@lemmy.world 6 months ago
But property is theft, so now you are under arrest
ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Just to be a troublemaker, everyone is assuming this a solid cube, but what if it was something like 1/4 inch tungsten plates and hollow in the middle?
What would it weigh? Would it float in water?
uis@lemm.ee 6 months ago
son_named_bort@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I need tungsten to live!
Etterra@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I just looked it up, that thing is worth like $54,000. Granted, you’re going to need somebody to come haul it off, but at 10.66k per cubic foot, I’d say it’s not a bad prize.
octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 6 months ago
All I can think of, sorry.
Sestren@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Assuming that’s about 5x5’, and going by the price of the first tungsten cube found on Google, this would be worth about 15 million dollars. Decent prize of you could move 150,000lb.
peopleproblems@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Hmmm.
So the real game show is getting value out of the prize.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Welcome to another exciting episode of CAN! YOU! FENCE THIS?!?!*
Reminds me of an impromptu back and forth prank a set of brothers used to pull on each other where they regifted each other a pair of hideous moleskin pants in increasingly elaborate ways.
ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 6 months ago
Best I can do is a copy of Battletoads
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 6 months ago
About the same as me winning a giant-ass dinette and patio set for my moderate-sized apartment.
Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net 6 months ago
Melt it.
Wait…
Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 months ago
Eat it!
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Nobody doesn’t like molten tungsten!
HelixDab2@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Going with your 5’ x 5’ x 5’ size, that should weigh about 132,624 pounds, or about 66.3 tons. The price, as of 2018, was about $30,000/ton. That works out to be about $2M.
Still a pretty heft prize.
Sestren@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Didn’t calculate the price by weight. Just took the number from the 6" cube here and extrapolated from that since it was the easiest math.
shop.tungsten.com/tungsten-cube/
The 5’ cube is 1000 times the size of the 6" cube and the 6" cube is $15k. The prices don’t scale up linearly though. The smaller cubes are better value by weight.
Xanis@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Unless there is some clause talking about time to receive or “only the participant”, then I would sell this thing at a fraction of the price and frolic into the sunset. Let someone else deal with the logistics, I just made an easy Mil.
ThelittleDoe@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 months ago
It’s about letting go…
superkret@feddit.org 6 months ago
But where and to whom?
JayObey711@lemmy.world 6 months ago
In reall units and currencies thats about 68 tonnes (or around 50 VW Golfs) and 13,8 Million Euros (or 1/11000 of the money we lost due to cum-ex).