Mystery metal

The heavier metal is odd, too. Carbide, iirc, is about 1.5 the density of steel? or about 11. So this material would seem to be a bit heavier? I'm told there are varying kinds of carbide, so maybe it is one variety of carbide Put it on a green wheel, and see how it sparks. I believe some carbide is weakly magnetic, as well.

Do you have a geiger counter?

Gunner

"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences."

- Proverbs 22:3

I was thinking about that too. Wouldn't want to find yourself in the middle of a story like this:

Their the lug nuts off a reverse engineered ufo. Exposure for long periods of time causes hair loss, weight gain and nagging from significant other. May interfere with cell phone reception.

Return to manufacturer address: Skunk Works - Groom Lake Division Nevada, USA

BIG smile

Jim Vrzal Holiday, Fl.

Its more likely to be a piece of DU, which is no biggie

Gunner

"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences."

- Proverbs 22:3

I'd guess the heavy one is one of the tungsten alloys used for weights, some of these are quite hard. Pure uranium is quite soft as I recall (although perhaps DU is alloyed to make it harder).

DU? I hope not. Uran has 18.95 g/cm^3

Americum (Am): 13.67 g/cm^3 Berkelium (Bk): 14 g/cm^3 Curium (Cm): 14 g/cm^3 Hafnium (Hf): 13.31 g/cm^3 Mercury (Hg): 13.59 g/cm^3

Nick

(G) That occurred to me, too, but I think it's unlikely. I *can* get my hands on a geiger counter, though.

Jim

I second this guess. They make "easy to machine" alloys with copper that are still VERY hard. One company that made tungsten alloys was Kulite, but apparently they sold that business off to H.C. Starck.

Doug White

Interesting info. The piece _is_ magnetic. The flat makes it look like a section of a tool shank, which hints toward a tungsten carbide, too. I also noticed what looks like a laser marking at one end of the flat that I forgot to mention before. It reads "###".

Thanks, but not this time. For one thing, I have good friends in the physics and radiocarbon dating labs at the University of Arizona. No shipping required. But I seriously doubt this stuff could be radioactive anyway, and I'm not really planning on checking. :-)

Cheers, and thanks again!

Jim

There are many true stories of items that were low level radioactive being found at scrap yards and so forth. DU is/was used as trim weights in helicopter blades and so forth, and have been found.

I collect lead for bullet casting..and have found more than one odd shaped lead container that was used to hold a source. Shrug

But if its magnetic..its not DU.

"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences."

- Proverbs 22:3

OK, I can't be the _only_ one that has a geiger counter in the basement, right?

It's not holding on to those photons any more than your eyes are holding on to the light they've received.

I remember touring Fermilab in Illinois when I was in high school (advanced physics class field trip). They showed us two blocks of astonishingly dense material, I think it was tungsten. roughly brick sized and could barely move 'em.

I have a radiation meter... (it is not exactly a geiger counter)

I have at least 6 different types, plus the pocket rad counters.

"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences."

- Proverbs 22:3

Well ... not in the basement -- but I have two. One is a simple "radiation survey meter" of the kind which used to be in CD fallout shelters and such, and the other is a nice multi-range one which is Navy surplus, and took quite a bit of work to adapt available batteries to replace the 135V brick with an octal socket with two keyways. :-)

Agreed. As long as it is not alloyed with something which is knocked into a different isotope and which will later decay making secondary radiation.

Unless it is in a steel housing. :-)

:-)

Enjoy, DoN.

Budda bing. Ive found "dust" inside them that was hot. Not really hot...but significantly higher than background. Washed em out with a garden hose and they read clean. This being years ago of course in another location.

"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences."

- Proverbs 22:3

All mine take D batteries, or self charge (dosimeters) using the reader which uses..a D battery.

Gunner

"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences."

- Proverbs 22:3