A friend (not on this list) commented to me on the side: "Molten metals have a wicked high surface tension. Would never flow, always ball-up." He says the only choice is hot forging/hot rolling. Comments: "You can turn glass on an ordinary lathe if it's red hot."
Jeff On Fri, Dec 7, 2012 at 7:57 PM, Jeff Berkowitz <[email protected]> wrote: > Abd, I assume you're aware of the hazards of working with this stuff? > > That being said, its melting point is not absurdly high - under 2400F. > Could you melt some under, say, an N2 or argon atmosphere, on perhaps a > ceramic surface, so that it spread out into a thin layer, and then cool it? > > Jeff > > > > On Fri, Dec 7, 2012 at 8:35 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax > <[email protected]>wrote: > >> At 05:02 PM 12/6/2012, Jed Rothwell wrote: >> >>> Yes, a more powerful reaction would be nice, but we must work with what >>> we have, as Abd stresses. We will die of old age if we sit around waiting >>> UPS to deliver a $1.5 million package of unobtainium. >>> >> >> It's coming? And the reward of patience is ... patience. >> >> Actually, I asked for $1.5 million so I could *attempt to obtain* this >> crucial material. That would include my overhead, travel expenses, etc. You >> don't think it's easy to buy unobtainium, do you? >> >> If we actually find some, we might need to go back for more funding to >> actually purchase it. >> >> However, the bright side: unobtainium is expected to be simply a >> catalyst. So it will not be destroyed in the experiments, and we could >> resell it. Given how much work it will have taken to find the material, we >> could probably break it down into smaller pieces and resell them to recover >> the funding, with the profit from resale covering the initial outlay. >> >> Actually, seriously, I just bought a bit over 5 grams of beryllium metal, >> 99.9% pure,on eBay for $37. What I really wanted was a very small piece of >> beryllium foil, but was I patient? No.... >> >> Did I ask if someone had a small piece they could spare? No.... >> >> I found how insanely expensive beryllium foil was and assumed that >> beryllium itself must be so as well. No, I paid a reasonable price, it >> turns out, for 5 grams. However, what I really want is a tiny piece that I >> can fit in the well of an Am-241 ionization source from a smoke detector, >> because the conversion rate for alphas to neutrons by Be-9 is very low, and >> so getting the beryllium as close as possible to the alpha source is >> desirable. In commercial Am-Be neutron sources, they actually blend the Be >> and Am oxide. And they use a thousand times as much Am-241, i.e., one >> mCurie, instead of the 0.9 uCurie in a smoke detector source. >> >> (My goal is to test LR-115 SSNTD material for neutron detection. I had >> the naive idea that I might be able to bash the Beryllium metal with a >> hammer to make a thin foil, then cut a piece. Maybe. Probably not a great >> idea. Beryllium is very hard, it might shatter. I don't want to use >> machining or cutting techniques that would create small fragments, turning >> my apartment or basement into a hazardous waste area. I may try using this >> little ingot directly, and maybe the Be itself will multiply the neutrons a >> bit. But any ideas?) >> > >
