Tungsten disks

[TurtlePowered]

Wow. Tunsten fishing weights? I'll have to keep an eye open for that. I find it interesting that tungsten has the same density as gold.

It's certainly not cheap! $4 a ounce is the cheapest I've seen it. I am curious if it really is as dense as the tungston MaxV sells.

[PWD]

I would love ot use it but it is too expensive. I found a site that sells it for $4.00 for 2 oz. That is basically $10 per car. If you make 6 cars you are at $60 and that is too much.

The site I found it for $4 was for using it for fishing weights. No idea of the density.

-Stev-

[Gavin Chafin]

I would love ot use it but it is too expensive. I found a site that sells it for $4.00 for 2 oz. That is basically $10 per car. If you make 6 cars you are at $60 and that is too much.

The site I found it for $4 was for using it for fishing weights. No idea of the density.

-Stev-

I would think that Tungsten would have a uniform density. I would think that, if you purchased Tungsten as fishing weights, it should be similar to the Tungsten you can get at Max-V. I purchased the Tungsten disks from Max-V and I believe that I probably put about $10 worth of weights in one car. If you’re building one car, $10 isn’t too bad. But if you’re building multiple cars, the total cost can escalate quickly.

[Darin McGrew]

It's certainly not cheap! $4 a ounce is the cheapest I've seen it.

I've seen tungsten fishing weights at just under $4/package, with up to 2oz of weight in each package (2 @ 1oz, 4 @ 1/2oz, etc.). That's about $2/oz.

Maximum Velocity sells scrap tungsten (tungsten disks in assorted sizes left over from machining) at $2/oz, so my guess is that you aren't going to find it much cheaper than that.

[Da Graphite Kid]

I know that the title of this post is "Tungsten Disks", but with the discussion about the price of tungsten coming up, I just had to chip in.

We use the Tungsten Cubes from Max-V. I liked the square shape of these and thought that it would be easier to fill up all the nooks and crannies between the weights because of their shape.

I tried to get my wife to let me order more of the cubes for the pwd cars we will be building for this year's race. "I'll be needing enough for about ten cars; will you be building one to sweety?" She said no (okay, she didn't just say no... ) and told me that I would have to take them out of the cars we built the last two years. I imagine that I made some statement about this being sacrilegious as well as being impossible since we use a two-part epoxy to keep the cubes where we want them in the first place. After I retreated to my shop and tried to decide which pwd cars we were going to sacrifice to get the tungsten cubes back out of, I remembered what had happened when I tried to drill part of one out last year - I basically got nowhere but the tungsten cube got really hot (hot enough to scar a questioning fingertip! ) and the epoxy seemed to melt. I soon had a 75 watt light bulb beaming down on the epoxy of one of the cars. It took some time but the epoxy softened up enough to pry out those precious cubes of tungsten one by one. It took me a while but I soon had all we needed without destroying our previuos years works of art. I used a hobby knife to flake off the epoxy that remained on the cubes once they cooled off. Hey, I didn't even burn myself this time!

So we will continue to use the tungsten cubes since we have found a way to recycle them!

Da Graphite Kid
[Sorry Randy, no Tungsten Cubes in my oredr this year!]

[MaxV]

I would think that Tungsten would have a uniform density. I would think that, if you purchased Tungsten as fishing weights, it should be similar to the Tungsten you can get at Max-V.

Most of the tungsten products found on the market are made by compressing powdered tungsten into the desired shape, and then firing it at a very high temperature (this process is called 'sintering'). The final density will depend on the compression, and on the purity of the powder. So, the final density does vary and does not quite reach the atomic density of tungsten.

The cubes, disks, and beads we sell are sintered, and do vary bit. The discs do not appear to be sintered, so I am not sure how they are made.

By the way, a few places sell powdered tungsten. You can mix it with epoxy to create a pourable paste. It can be poured into molds or cavities. Depending on the mix it ends up just a bit more dense than lead. It is a bit messy, but more safe than melting lead.

[Sorry Randy, no Tungsten Cubes in my order this year!]

Dang! I'll have to come up with something that appeals to wives!

[Darin McGrew]

Dang! I'll have to come up with something that appeals to wives!

Tungsten jewelry? ("Honey, Junior's derby car is still a little light. Can we borrow your earrings until next weekend?")

[Darin McGrew]

By the way, a few places sell powdered tungsten. You can mix it with epoxy to create a pourable paste. It can be poured into molds or cavities. Depending on the mix it ends up just a bit more dense than lead. It is a bit messy, but more safe than melting lead.

I found powdered tungsten on the web at about $20/lb, or $1.25/oz. I don't know how much shipping would cost, and of course, the epoxy would add a bit more.

[MathGuy]

Tungsten "Powder" is not considered a 100% safe, since it is for scouts, I am not sure it is appropriate for PWD. I read about health hazard in a post on a model train site thread talking about the tungsten powder. I am not sure what the relative health hazard is. (Worst than lead? I don't know.)

There is a product that you can get that is Tungsten Putty, AKA Sticky weights. It is made for fishing, but it cost about 5.00 dollars per ounce. It is safe and ready for use for Scouts though. Since the putty itself "rubbery", and has a density about half of real tungsten, but that makes it about the same as the Weights the cubscouts sell. But the advantages is that it is a HEAVY putty.

I am currious on it's shock absorbing quality of have a large amount of the weight of a car weight comes from such a putty? I would assume little to nothing, but I don't understand the physics of the vibrations.

Any comments from the engineers out there?