Tungsten Putty?

A while ago people were discussing ways (weighs?) of making dense objects.

I just got a random email form a company selling 'Tungsten putty' for £11.49 an ounce. Used to hand-form fishing weights, I suppose as the link to me to carp bait...

I wonder how dense this is and if it could be used to 'stuff' a hoolw steel or brass shell?

Neil

Edit at 10 grammes per cubic centimetre its a bout 20% heavier than steel and about 15% heavier than brass (depending on the brass).

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 30/06/2019 07:51:11

May as well just stuff it with lead, I'm assuming your hollow balls are engineering rather than fishing related where there is nothing to poison.

Another source

Tungsten

Top class race engines use depleted uranium weights on the crankshafts. They are extremely heavy for their size! Boeing aeroplanes have loads of it in the rudder controls.

Google "densimet", it is a tungsten alloy of around 18 relative density.

At the museum, we got an American tipjet powered helicopter powered by hydrogen peroxide. It never went into production and is mainly a pile of bits.

Among the parts was a quantity of densimet bar stock, 1/2" one end and 12mm at the other. They are about a foot long. I have made boring and threading bars out of them which work very well. It mills, turns and parts off with carbide inserts and can also be tapped with hss. Some taps work and some don't, it may require a tap intended for aluminium, as it might tend to workharden.

I have made several solid carbide boring bars by silver soldering the tips of steel bars on to the shanks, but densimet can be one piece because of its machinability.

Quite a bit of info on this site **LINK** regarding tungsten and other heavy metals. I machined quite a bit if this back in the 1960's it was always referred to as "heavy alloy" we had to return the swarf for reprocessing. The components were called - control weights - and were for use in aircraft, can't remember the specific aircraft though.

The material was tough on tooling/cutters, a few years ago I acquired some to make some weights as samples for a company in Italy and still have a piece of bar left and a box of swarf ! It was again tough and very difficult to tap the threads hole required.

John

Tungsten: means heavy stone in Danish.

Depleted uranium definitely very heavy, I can vouch for that, we used to have depleted uranium containers for radio-active isotopes used in gamma radiography. Carrying the depleted uranium containers up into radar aerials some 100 feet off the ground made you aware just how dense and heavy the uranium was.

Dave W

Yes, it means heavy stone, but are you sure it isn't Swedish? See here.

Thor

Bra! They are two very similar languages as fans of "The Bridge" will know.

Depleted uranium is radioactive, seems a funny sort of container for isotopes.

 Tungsten has a relative density slightly greater than uranium and slightly less than gold.

Edited By old mart on 30/06/2019 14:03:24

Depleted uranium is only slightly radioactive, no more than encountered day to day but it has high density hence it's use in bullets and shells.

Roger

Sorry, when I found the putty is only about half the density of pure tungsten, so it's only slightly heavier than brass I thought it probably wasn't worth the effort. Should have made that clear.

Neil

As Roger said depleted uranium is only slightly radio-active but as it is so dense it is used because it will attenuate the emissions from highly radioactive isotopes therefore making suitable containment enclosures for said isotopes.

Dave W

Densimet is also excellent for storing isotopes, it can be moulded and sintered and is machinable. Mostly tungsten with iron, there are several types. The 1/2" ground bars I use are quite strong. Parting down to 1/8" diameter and snapping off proves it is similar to breaking a drill blank of the same diameter.

After the Iraq war there was a lot of criticism regarding the contamination caused by depleted uranium.