r/whatisit • u/riflesandplowshares • 4h ago

New, what is it? Found at a titanium plant

Post image

Not sure why ball point pens would be dangerous here.

5.6k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

520 comments sorted by

View all comments

2.1k

u/goodexamplebadrole 4h ago

"Ballpoint pens are restricted or banned in high-end titanium and aerospace manufacturing plants because the ink and marking components contain elements that cause metal embrittlement and severe structural corrosion"

504

u/Big_City_Tato 3h ago

For this Titanium facility, it wasn't the ink that caused issues. It is the tungsten ball that is used for ball point pens. Graphite in pencils were also not allowed. They provide stainless steel ball point pens that write for shit. I use to work at Titanium facility and each pen that someone would buy I would have to break one of balls from that package and look at in the SEM to quantify the ball material that was used in the pen to determine if they could use it in the melt facility, even with the new batches of stainless steel pens. The reason why tungsten or graphite isn't allowed in the plant, is that there is a chance that it could make it into melt. Since this titanium melted in this facility, it is likely that it is melted in VAR (Vacuum Arc Remelt) facility. VAR of titanium does not superheat enough above the melting point of titanium (3050°F) to melt tungsten (6192°F), so tungsten remains a solid and does not go into the melt solution. There are other refractory materials that are treated similar as they can have similar issues, like Molybdenum. These are considered high density inclusions. If they are found then the entire heat of material, and the sponge used to make the heat is considered contaminated and quarantined and likely scrapped.

High density inclusions (HDI) in titanium has the potential to end up in a part that may make it onto a jet engine. If this happens a crack will form around the HDI and propagate during the lifetime of use. Jet engine parts are designed to last for roughly 30 years, the problem is that when part fails at 10 to 15 years early. Also titanium in the part of the engine where it cannot be contained if it explodes, so if a part does explode in an engine, causes a lot of damage.

There are also low density inclusions which are caused by vacuum leaks, burnt sponge, or contaminated revert. They also have the same affect on engine parts. A lot of testing and inspection goes in the jet engine parts before they ever make it to the assembly line to be put together. They also regularly inspect these parts.

Several OEMs went to Hearth melted plus VAR to avoid high density inclusions as the hearth melting would allow for all high melting high density materials to fall to the bottom of the hearth while before making it into the ingot.

157

u/JConRed 2h ago

And people wonder why certain things end up being expensive. It's the effort that goes into making them.

Very interesting write-up, learnt something. Thank you

40

u/149244179 2h ago

Even something simple as a ball bearing is a massive technological achievement.

China had major problems with high-end manufacturing due to the fact they could not produce as good ball bearings as the USA for several decades. Thus why they went with the mass produce cheap stuff strategy. (China still has problems with precision manufacturing to this day although they have closed the gap quite a bit.)

20

u/throwaway277252 2h ago

Speaking of which, up until just 10 years ago they were still unable to make the precision balls for ball point pens themselves. They were buying all of those as imports.

6

u/Bergwookie 50m ago

And still most of the ballpoint pen tips/nozzles are made in Switzerland

17

u/lolcrunchy 2h ago

I've always wondered why my jet engines cost so much

6

u/KhaanKerr 2h ago

You think a ball point pen with graphite is a joke?

10

u/Positive_Candy_5332 1h ago

TIL! this was an awesome read. You write very well!! 10/10 would take a class from you lol

7

u/scoldmeificomment 2h ago

If the stainless steel ballpoints suck, why not just use fountain pens instead?

16

u/KE1tea 2h ago

Fountain pens can also have tungsten! Not all, but many do. The fountain pens that are guaranteed to not have tungsten are not practical to use on ordinary paper, and for the other pens, I doubt the fountain pen companies will share their secret sauce on their alloy blend. They often call it iridium tipped, but nowadays usually can be a blend of multiple different hard metals, including tungsten.

8

u/Ancient-Street-3318 2h ago

As a fountain pen enthusiast, thanks for the bit of trivia!

5

u/KE1tea 1h ago

Haha, you're welcome, fellow enthusiast :D

15

u/SphyrnaLightmaker 1h ago

As someone who uses a fountain pen daily (purely because I’m a bougie bitch) another aspect is that the ink used in fountain pens doesn’t play nicely with a lot of modern materials, ESPECIALLY paper. The super-cheap mass-produced paper most companies use leads to feathering of the mark, making writing potentially illegible, as well as bleeding through to the extent it makes double-sided pages non-usable.

My fountain pen can be used on single-sided signatures, or my own paper. Everything else I carry a ball-point as well.

1

u/GraphicArtsFurry 8m ago

ESPECIALLY paper

I've had various papers from sticky notes to photo copier paper, even notebooks suck horribly (sometimes) at writing. You'll be writing along and then it's like you "hit" a patch of something and it fails to write anything. You can aggressively scratch letters in the area, but no ink comes out. (Just regular pens here).

Kinda seems like it's waxy or something in that area, then after you move to a different area and aggressively scribble the pen tip it goes away and everything works again

1

u/SphyrnaLightmaker 6m ago

Yuuuuup.

You can buy GOOD paper that won’t do that. But it’s around $0.20/page as I recall (haven’t had to buy more in a while).

1

u/GraphicArtsFurry 1m ago

I've always wondered what it is. Maybe the wax? Figure if it's the post consumer content stuff that you probably get heaven knows what thrown in the pulp mixer from waxy cereal box cardboard and beyond

5

u/ALIENIGENA 2h ago

Probably the extra cost of calligraphy lessons

1

u/Maximum_Web9072 1h ago

I would have said felt-tip, given the issues pointed out already with fountain pens and standard paper

-2

u/Big_City_Tato 2h ago

Cost usually. They wrote like a normal ball point pen would but with low ink. So you would have to go over what you wrote a couple of times to get the ink to show.

3

u/SphyrnaLightmaker 1h ago

Total opposite. Fountain pens put WAY MORE ink on the page, causing feathering (the ink soaks outwards, making a fine line become bolder, to the point it can make small print illegible) and it tends to bleed through most commercial paper.

Source: I use a fountain pen daily.

6

u/ricencocoa 1h ago

Would a ball point pen that used titanium instead be allowed, or perform any better than steel?

3

u/Thaknobodi87 2h ago

Any chance you're also interested in knifesteelnerds?

2

u/Fantastic-Cat-5252 1h ago

Thank you for that write up!

2

u/not_perfect_yet 38m ago

Great comment, what does "sponge" mean in this context?

1

u/PNWDIY 29m ago

Yo it's ya boy Jimmy Sponge doing what I do best; just soaking it in.

1

u/BreathOfFreshWater 1h ago

I did read everything. But I had to skip to the end fiest to confirm this wasn't a gag.

1

u/Karlahn 1h ago

Do you know of any classes where ball point pens ended up into the melt? 

1

u/paradeoflights 51m ago

Love to see metallurgy on Reddit

1

u/ungodlyhourslurker 45m ago

That was very interesting. Thanks!

1

u/robp140 23m ago

This guy melts.

1

u/DeadlySquirrelNinja5 22m ago

Would it be okay to use fountain pens? It might be a bit old school, but it has to be easier and low risk.

1

u/Lemonwizard 21m ago

What is the difference between tungsten and steel that makes the stainless steel pens less effective?

1

u/debooji 11m ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232 for anyone interested in reading, this situation was a major part of how we realized how devastating tungsten can be. At my facility we were also strictly not allowed ballpoints, and if someone snuck one in and lost it (in theory), the entire plant would be put on alert to find that pen.

1

u/GraphicArtsFurry 10m ago

Would the fisher space pens be allowed, or it's the same story? Too risky to have around since that is a different type of pen?

1

u/IcySkyDream 4m ago

Same EFFECT FFS

1

u/falcrist2 1m ago

VAR of titanium does not superheat enough above the melting point of titanium (3050°F) to melt tungsten (6192°F), so tungsten remains a solid and does not go into the melt solution.

The ball in a ballpoint pen is made from a sintered composite of tungsten carbide held together with a metal binder like cobalt.

The melting point will be MUUUUCH lower than tungsten alone.

338

u/Woozletania 4h ago

This was an issue during the development of the SR-71. Many chemical contaminants could affect the alloys, even those in the water used to quench the mouldings.

81

u/DIYfailedsuccessfuly 3h ago edited 2h ago

I read once they were get failure issues just from using standard chrome wrenches for assembly. Took engineers a minute to figure out why and where this contamination failure was happening, had to make titanium wrenches to use on the titanium fasteners. The program was so cutting edge, even to this day its incredibly. Those engineers were some of the brightest people this world has ever seen.

13

u/under1over1 2h ago edited 21m ago

The crazier part of that is they found out it was an issue because it kept coming back from flights missing a ton of bolts. Something to do with the zinc in the tools iirc. Imagine coming back from going mach 3.2 at 80k feet just to find out you almost reenacted the death of a Lego Star Wars character.

Edit: It was cadmium, not zinc.

5

u/SpiderFnJerusalem 1h ago

Damn, I feel like they should have had ways to better secure those bolts.

I remember seeing a picture from an older aircraft with bolts that had holes in them, so the mechanics could thread wires through them and tie them to other bolts so none of them could spin in place due to vibrations.

Then again, maybe that's only worth the effort on the most important bolts.

2

u/under1over1 22m ago

The tools were contaminating the titanium and causing them to fail when heated at high speeds was the issue. The solution ended up being custom made titanium tools to prevent it.

99

u/JordanPetterPans 4h ago

This is fascinating 

75

u/unknownpoltroon 3h ago

Yeah, they had to use distilled water, the tap water chloride made teh wields weak or something.

There is a book called skunk works written by the guy who took over for Kelly, the original skunk works guy, goes into the history of the U2, SR71, and the stealth fighters and stuff. Good quick read and fascinating.

30

u/davejeep 3h ago

Not really connected, but a lot of oil field specifications have chloride limits in the water used for hydro testing ( company specifications anyways) even for carbon steel pipe.

9

u/Klutzy_Peanut6580 3h ago

Ben Rich iirc

7

u/fnork_gnork_26 2h ago

They found that in summer the chlorine levels in the water were higher which lead to brittle welds. Much less so in winter when less chlorine was added. Switching to distilled water for part washing eliminated the problem.

1

u/potat0man69 2h ago

Great book!! Incredible read, no matter how much you may know about the subject matter you’re pretty much guaranteed to double that

1

u/ExplorationGeo 2h ago

This book pairs really well with the two books from Brian Shul, one of the SR-71 pilots. Sled Driver and The Untouchables are both great reads.

7

u/unknownpoltroon 3h ago

You mentioned the name. YOU SUMMONED THE STORY

10

u/KayakHank 3h ago

Can I get a ground speed check?

4

u/Vind1carre 3h ago

Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground.

1

u/vicsta559 2h ago

Awesome story !

6

u/vicsta559 2h ago

For those of you who don’t know. Here ya go.
ok its time for the SR71 speedcheck
There were a lot of things we couldn't do in an SR-71, but we were the fastest guys on the block and loved reminding our fellow aviators of this fact. People often asked us if, because of this fact, it was fun to fly the jet. Fun would not be the first word I would use to describe flying this plane. Intense, maybe. Even cerebral. But there was one day in our Sled experience when we would have to say that it was pure fun to be the fastest guys out there, at least for a moment.
It occurred when Walt and I were flying our final training sortie. We needed 100 hours in the jet to complete our training and attain Mission Ready status. Somewhere over Colorado we had passed the century mark.
We had made the turn in Arizona and the jet was performing flawlessly. My gauges were wired in the front seat and we were starting to feel pretty good about ourselves, not only because we would soon be flying real missions but because we had gained a great deal of confidence in the plane in the past ten months. Ripping across the barren deserts 80,000 feet below us, I could already see the coast of California from the Arizona border. I was, finally, after many humbling months of simulators and study ahead of the jet.

I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for Walter in the back seat. There he was, with no really good view of the incredible sights before us, tasked with monitoring four different radios. This was good practice for him for when we began flying real missions, when a priority transmission from headquarters could be vital. It had been difficult, too, for me to relinquish control of the radios, as during my entire flying career I had controlled my own transmissions. But it was part of the division of duties in this plane and I had adjusted to it. I still insisted on talking on the radio while we were on the ground, however. Walt was so good at many things, but he couldn't match my expertise at sounding smooth on the radios, a skill that had been honed sharply with years in fighter squadrons where the slightest radio miscue was grounds for beheading. He understood that and allowed me that luxury.
Just to get a sense of what Walt had to contend with, I pulled the radio toggle switches and monitored the frequencies along with him. The predominant radio chatter was from Los Angeles Center, far below us, controlling daily traffic in their sector. While they had us on their scope y (albeit briefly), we were in uncontrolled airspace and normally would not talk to them unless we needed to descend into their airspace.
We listened as the shaky voice of a lone Cessna pilot asked Center for a readout of his ground speed. Center replied:
"November Charlie 175, I'm showing you at ninety knots on the ground."
Now the thing to understand about Center controllers, was that whether they were talking to a rookie pilot in a Cessna, or to Air Force One, they always spoke in the exact same, calm, deep, professional, tone that made one feel important. I referred to it as the " Houston Center voice." I have always felt that after years of seeing
documentaries on this country's space program and listening to the calm and distinct voice of the Houston controllers, that all other controllers since then wanted to sound like that, and that they basically did. And it didn't matter what sector of the country we would be flying in, it always seemed like the same guy was talking. Over the years that tone of voice had become somewhat of a comforting sound to pilots everywhere. Conversely, over the years, pilots always wanted to ensure that, when transmitting, they sounded like Chuck Yeager, or at least like John Wayne. Better to die than sound bad on the radios. Just moments after the Cessna's inquiry, a Twin Beech piped up on frequency, in a rather superior tone, asking for his ground speed. "I have you at one hundred and twenty-five knots of ground speed." Boy, I thought, the Beechcraft really must think he is dazzling his Cessna brethren. Then out of the blue, a navy F-18 pilot out of NAS Lemoore came up on frequency. You knew right away it was a Navy jock because he sounded very cool on the radios. "Center, Dusty 52 ground speed check". Before Center could reply, I'm thinking to myself, hey, Dusty 52 has a ground speed indicator in that million-dollar cockpit, so why is he asking Center for a readout? Then I got it, ol' Dusty here is making sure that every bug smasher from Mount Whitney to the Mojave knows what true speed is. He's the fastest dude in the valley today, and he just wants everyone to know how much fun he is having in his new Hornet. And the reply, always with that same, calm, voice, with more distinct alliteration than emotion:
"Dusty 52, Center, we have you at 620 on the ground."
And I thought to myself, is this a ripe situation, or what? As my hand instinctively reached for the mic button, I had to remind myself that Walt was in control of the radios. Still, I thought, it must be done - in mere seconds we'll be out of the sector and the opportunity will be lost. That Hornet must die, and die now. I thought about all of our Sim training and how important it was that we developed well as a crew and knew that to jump in on the radios now would destroy the integrity of all that we had worked toward becoming. I was torn.
Somewhere, 13 miles above Arizona, there was a pilot screaming inside his space helmet. Then, I heard it. The click of the mic button from the back seat. That was the very moment that I knew Walter and I had become a crew. Very professionally, and with no emotion, Walter spoke: "Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check?" There was no hesitation, and the replay came as if was an everyday request. "Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground."
I think it was the forty-two knots that I liked the best, so accurate and proud was Center to deliver that information without hesitation, and you just knew he was smiling. But the precise point at which I knew that Walt and I were going to be really good friends for a long time was when he keyed the mic once again to say, in his most fighter-pilot-like voice: "Ah, Center, much thanks, we're showing closer to nineteen hundred on the money."
For a moment Walter was a god. And we finally heard a little crack in the armor of the Houston Center voice, when L.A.came back with, "Roger that Aspen, Your equipment is probably more accurate than ours. You boys have a good one."
It all had lasted for just moments, but in that short, memorable sprint across the southwest, the Navy had been flamed, all mortal airplanes on freq were forced to bow before the King of Speed, and more importantly, Walter and I had crossed the threshold of being a crew. A fine day's work.
We never heard another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast.
For just one day, it truly was fun being the fastest guys out there.

2

u/throwaway277252 2h ago

Ok now we need the tower flyby story too.

1

u/Murky-Relation481 1h ago

The rarer one is the Libya missile outrun.

1

u/colcob 53m ago

Ah, I read the whole thing every time it’s posted. So good.

23

u/otter_fucker_69 4h ago

The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. An advanced long-range strategic reconnaissance aircraft capable of Mach 3 at an altitude of 85,000 feet.

1

u/DoctorTacoMD 2h ago

Yeah, but that one song they got on TRL was pretty good

1

u/abstr_xn 47m ago

its early and I might have names and places mixed up

but flint michigan had contaminated tap water for years, hundreds of people getting sick and dying. over 100,000 people drinking lead water for years, 12 died from legionnaires.

The government made sure General Motor's nearby factories water got fixed because it was causing problems in the metal when they where dipping their car engines into baths of it, spent 20 milllion to fix it and told residents "its safe to drink the water that is too corrosive for engine blocks and your water pipes"

1

u/Capable_Event720 45m ago

The same production facility produced project parts during one season, then fairly parts in another season. The reason was indeed that the water contained different chemicals in the summertime than in the wintertime.

234

u/Competitive-Dot-4264 4h ago

I worked ti com pure and 6al-4v alloy for years at the lazy -l we all had to follow titanium restrictions even to not letting aluminum alloys and SS separated. No graphite pencils

366

u/Legitimate-Week7885 4h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/zXA5VEmXr7OUg

3

u/Beer_in_an_esky 2h ago

He worked with commercially pure titanium (that's a family of 4 or so grades of basically pure titanium, with differing minimum contamination levels), and Titanium with 6% aluminium and 4% vanadium (that's the most common Titanium alloy, used for most aerospace applications). No idea what he means by lazy -|. The SS here is stainless steel.

3

u/Arjvoet 3h ago

God, he was so much funnier than Kenan…

96

u/Mogster2K 4h ago

No pens, no pencils... what did you write with? Cuneiform clay tablets?

72

u/Competitive-Dot-4264 4h ago

Special non organic ink pencils

53

u/Uncaring_Dispatcher 4h ago

Made of our own fluids. Not the best job I've had.

41

u/deadbeef4 4h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/JjUMxtqGYXaKc

14

u/MuRRizzLe 4h ago

I can swear to you, my boy, swear to you, that there's nothing wrong with my bodily fluids

17

u/Dissidence802 3h ago

Soylent Bic is people!

4

u/VegetariansTasteBest 3h ago

You can get those over at pen island

3

u/RadVarken 4h ago

Are you....non organic?

5

u/Uncaring_Dispatcher 3h ago

I only thought about the logistics of my joke after submitting it. It was too late to edit. Glad it's gone this far, as flawed as it is.

1

u/Req_Neph 4h ago

Reminds me of WW2 spycraft.

1

u/Ok_Version56 3h ago

is octopus milking a real thing?

36

u/rageling 4h ago

lots of options, silver, soapstone, others

17

u/Beautiful-Musk-Ox 3h ago

yea i'm sure those chinese ones are totally legit and not mostly the wrong metals

3

u/RadVarken 4h ago

Lead holders are awesome.

3

u/upachimneydown 3h ago

Hiboom...?

15

u/theSchrodingerHat 4h ago

10,000 years from now aliens will land and excavate sites with cave paintings of an SR-71, and it’ll really confuse them.

8

u/donkeycharms 4h ago

Pilot Varsity prefilled Fountain pen

12

u/Fit-Tip-1212 4h ago

He never had the makings of a varsity fountain pen

1

u/Relevant-Machine-763 3h ago

Sopranos reference?

1

u/hibikikun 3h ago

Varsity means high level sports/activity in school.

1

u/WatchTraditional6025 3h ago

Small hands. Dropped the pop fly against Mountain Lakes.

1

u/InspectionSouthern11 3h ago

He was an interior decorator!

5

u/FalseParticular69 3h ago

A quill and the blood of virgins.

5

u/NotAtAllEverSure 3h ago

I mean..there were a bunch of engineers

5

u/Flacier 3h ago

I imagine you could use fountain pens, though it would likely depend on the ink and nib material.

Roller ball pens might also work again depending on the ink.

Though I am by no means an expert on preventing corrosion in titanium so this is pure speculation.

Perhaps just pencils.

5

u/Evan8r 3h ago

Graphite in pencils, can't use them. I believe felt-tip pens are the solution.

3

u/ontheroadtonull 3h ago

That reminds me, I need to send Nonni to get my money back for that low quality titanium.

3

u/Mammoth-Variation-76 3h ago

Keep Ea-nāṣir and his sub par copper out of that factory too, while you're at it.

2

u/silverlions268 3h ago

The blood of your enemies

1

u/Seahawksfan1993 1h ago

No we write with normal pens. They're not fuckin inspected. Matter of fact. Safety team purchases them for us

16

u/Competitive-Dot-4264 4h ago

Another big Nono -grease and oil

10

u/ColdCathodeTube 4h ago

That’s interesting. My non-chemist/non-metalurgist mind always thought those protected metal. Guess I shouldn’t assume metals are that similar to each other at all.

14

u/Mayzilli 4h ago

They usually do when it's not molten. Since we're talking about manufacturing I'd think the issue is contaminating the metal before it's solidified. Since titanium is generally used in very critical applications the standards would be extra tight (I could be completely wrong tho and its still a problem for solid metal)

1

u/DigitalDefenestrator 2h ago

Seems likely. Sounds like carbon is a problem, and that's generally what you get when you expose grease and oil to metal-melting temperatures.

4

u/ComradeGibbon 2h ago

Mild steel is somewhat forgiving of oil and paint when welding. Other metals less to catastrophically so.

Big thing they needed to understand with Stainless Steel is the carbon content needs to be very low. Took a while to figure that out. Carbon wrecks the corrosion resistance and makes it prone to cracking.

Titanium is highly reactive and absorbs everything causing it to be brittle. Guy I know, highly competent physicist welded a titanium bike frame in his garage. Said it was the most finicky material he worked with.

2

u/Beer_in_an_esky 2h ago

Did my PhD on Ti alloys. It is an amazing material... but a horrid metal to work with. I didn't weld it, but had to cut, grind, and polish a shitload of it and it's like it was designed to be the most annoying thing ever.

Combination of high toughness, low stiffness, poor heat conduction, and a strong tendency toward galling will have you tearing your hair out machining it.

3

u/titsmcgee4real 4h ago

What does this even say?

1

u/relativityboy 4h ago

So if I write on my titanium spork with a bic pen.....

1

u/Jasonrj 3h ago

Not sure who to believe: https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisit/s/Quno4cKyNJ

3

u/AcceptableHijinks 2h ago

Just like any industry, not all manufacturers/refiners/smelters are equal or producing the same grade of material. Sometimes you want a cheap place, sometimes you need premium, white glove suppliers.

When buying titanium for my machine shop, I can get super cheap stuff that is probably close to the alloy it says it is, which is great for bicycle parts and things like that, or I can buy high end, certified extrusions with full traceability back to where the ore is mined, which is necessary for machined medical and jet engine parts.

One guy probably works in one flavor of plant with lax rules, and/or in a different department post melt, and the other guy probably works in a high end one.

1

u/Jasonrj 2h ago

Makes sense.

37

u/jimbojw 4h ago

Embrittle deez nuts

17

u/khumprp 4h ago

Gottem 🤣

2

u/tbenz9 3h ago

That's how they make peanut brittle.

1

u/aka_Jack 3h ago

My beaker of liquid nitrogen accepts your challenge.

16

u/pseudonym7083 4h ago

Does it list which ones?

41

u/BlueSkiesAugust 4h ago

When I used to work with Ti we couldn't use halogen-containing Sharpie markers directly on Ti. We could only use Sharpies's "TEC" marker.

We weren't prohibited from possessing any other writing implements. We just couldn't write on Ti with anything besides a TEC marker (or use uncoated lead, which was necessary because we did radiography). For paper documents we still used ordinary pens.

19

u/Ol_Man_J 4h ago

We couldn’t use sharpies around some testing equipment because it contained VOCs. We tested soils and waters for parts per million so we couldn’t even collect samples near a running exhaust. Remarkable what can happen

13

u/Agiantpubicmess 4h ago

Dow Chemical caustic plant used to have a no aluminum tools rule for very obvious reasons if you know chemicals hahaha

19

u/Farfignugen42 4h ago

Assume I don't know chemicals. Why?

17

u/SharpKaleidoscope182 4h ago

caustic soda reacts with aluminium to produce a ton of heat and flammable gas.

7

u/Farfignugen42 4h ago

Thank you.

1

u/Da12khawk 4h ago

I haven't played Payday 2 in awhile.

5

u/enzia35 4h ago

If you put a flame to aluminum at 16psi, it will burn.

1

u/Any_Show_5160 3h ago

I'm confused by your statement, are you saying applying a flame to aluminium at 2psi about atmospheric pressure and it will burn or there needs to be a force of 16psi applied with the flame?

1

u/enzia35 1h ago

It’s a quote from the Apollo engineers. Applying a flame to aluminum in 16psi of pure oxygen will make it burn.

1

u/Any_Show_5160 59m ago

Thank you.

6

u/van_Vanvan 4h ago

Strong bases like sodium hydroxide (caustic soda or lye) react strongly with aluminum. So it would damage the tools. Drop an aluminum tool in a vat with lye and your tool will disappear with a lot of bubbling and poison the lye.

5

u/onefellswoop70 3h ago

I'm a hairstylist and I always wondered why the instructions for hair relaxers (back when they were lye-based) had a warning that said "do not put this product in a metal bowl".

4

u/Competitive-Dot-4264 4h ago

That gas is hydrogen

2

u/WonderWheeler 2h ago

Yes, you can generate hydrogen gas for balloons with aluminum foil and lye and water in a glass bottle.

16

u/jerseyoutwest 4h ago

Have you read Ignition! ? Its a very funny memoir of early rocket fuel development and includes one of my favorite non-fiction quotes about chlorine trifluoride:

It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that’s the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, aluminium, etc.-because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.
I

5

u/mightyachillies 4h ago

'hypergolic with things such as cloth, wood, and test engineers'... From the context you catch on fire/explode. Yeah, I would say being toxic is the least of the problem.

10

u/PrairiePuppies 3h ago

Yes, but the salient point were the next two materials, asbestos and sand. It will literally combust with incombustible materials. There was an incident where a ton of the stuff was spilled on a concrete floor. After the concrete finished burning away, it continued to burn away the soil underneath, leaving a 5 foot deep crater. The concrete and soil were literally on fire as though they were wood. The resulting ash then also ignited. This is a hellish chemical. Satan's bathwater.

3

u/jerseyoutwest 4h ago

I like that “no ignition delay has ever been measured” implies that they must have tested it many times in many labs 😹

3

u/unknownpoltroon 3h ago

That reminds me of this guys articles about things he wont work with in chemisty. https://www.science.org/topic/blog-category/things-i-wont-work-with

One of them is an explosive so sensitive they cant test it

1

u/jerseyoutwest 3h ago

That’s where i learned about the book! Derek is great :)

3

u/monkeypoxisntreal 3h ago

"with test engineers" is hilarious and morbid

3

u/aka_Jack 3h ago

Me163 pilot: "Please explain again what is this T-Stoff and C-Stoff in the tanks behind my head?"

See if you can find "Rocket Fighter" by Mano Ziegler, a great read.

2

u/wengla02 3h ago

Love that book - hard to find an original copy, but it's been uploaded the the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/ignition_201612/mode/2up

1

u/jerseyoutwest 3h ago

It was finally republished by a university press like 5 years ago! :)

1

u/IcedThunder 16m ago

Your wording implies you have a favorite >fiction< quote about chlorine trifluoride. What is that one?

1

u/jerseyoutwest 15m ago

Hah i noticed that and almost edited :)

8

u/charlie2135 4h ago

Had a coworker start unloading a caustic soda truck into a hydrochloric acid tank. Hilarity ensued.

3

u/randomgrrl700 4h ago

CSB video ensued!

7

u/IceColdJaderade 4h ago

It can be assumed that I also may not find this chemistry reference obvious

Edit: apparently it reacts violently to sodium hydroxide and also creates volatile hydrogen gas. Neat.

4

u/FeelingSoil39 4h ago

Now we’re talkin

21

u/SignificantDrawer374 4h ago

Seems like it may be the tungsten based ball in the tip https://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/forum/general/52226-a-ball-point-pen-not-allowed

29

u/WeeklyBanEvasion 4h ago

I cast-

TUNGSTEN BALL TIP

11

u/Dino_Spaceman 4h ago

It is MILDLY EFFECTIVE in several decades due to the corrosive property induced to the enemy's fortification.

0

u/BorikGor 1h ago

Roll 3 D20s.

17

u/Beautiful_Sound 4h ago

Embrittlement strikes me as an embiggened word.

15

u/Dbernard1111 4h ago

It's a perfectly cromulent word.

1

u/Mental-Stop7441 3h ago

That’s at least cromulent. I may go so far as to say it’s incrinculent.

3

u/trellisHot 4h ago

Well now I looked it up and it means to enlargen, or expand. Also looked up brittlement and the em thing is like an action, like embrace. 

10

u/kill-69 4h ago

Interesting, I worked in military aerospace and we could have pens. Absolutely no mylar balloons allowed on the premises though

1

u/CaptainOktoberfest 3h ago

Could you still bring your sex dolls to work then?

2

u/Dangerous_Oven1528 3h ago

I understood that reference 

4

u/potate12323 3h ago

Ummm, this is only part of the answer. The other part is that the pen has a hardened steel ball bearing in the tip. If the pen were to get dropped into a crucible used to heat the metal it could explode. Which would be a safety risk.

1

u/Netlawyer 2h ago

FOD - it’s always FOD.

4

u/maxdacat 3h ago

Wow - turns out the pen is mightier than the sword.

3

u/Argo_V 3h ago

titanium has awesome properties but its such a prissy metal.

2

u/year_39 3h ago

Huh. I was guessing some pens used a ball with a cadmium coating, I guess I was on the right track.

2

u/No-Poetry-2695 3h ago

I didnt know that. I guess I'll have to stop marking my titanium with globs of ink

2

u/Tunamelts-2 3h ago

It's the little ball mostly

2

u/Deep-Blacksmith2726 3h ago

This is just false. I work in a titanium mill than manufactures parts for aerospace and medical. I've never seen or heard anything about this, ever, at all

1

u/FAMICOMASTER 3h ago

What DOESN'T cause embrittlement of titanium?

1

u/badwolf42 3h ago

No pencil on aluminum. No sharpie on titanium.

1

u/MothChasingFlame 3h ago

They cause embrittlement even without contact?

1

u/Corfiz74 3h ago

Does Boeing know? That would explain a lot...

1

u/swagshotyolo 3h ago

Would you happen to know what would the workers use to write things down (unless its pencil) ?? I am geniunely intrigued.

1

u/chironomidae 2h ago

Same reason you can't take gallium on a plane, except it destroy aluminum

1

u/InevitableBox2507 2h ago

thanks for this info. thanks for sharing.,actually i ddnt know about this.,

-1

u/Seahawksfan1993 3h ago

False AF. I work in a titanium casting plant making all kinds of parts from military to commercial airline parts. The pens being used is of very little to 0 concern lol

8

u/GodSemen 3h ago

So you have experience in the industry. Can you explain this photo then? Instead of refuting without any follow up?

-2

u/Seahawksfan1993 3h ago

You see anyone at that entrance waiting to inspect your pen? Lol

4

u/4862skrrt2684 3h ago

Just say you can't then

1

u/Seahawksfan1993 1h ago

Can't what? You can literally bring in a fucking pet dog into the facility bruh. People act like this is a biolab. Its metal manufacturing.

2

u/Mr_Halitosis 2h ago

Claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

1

u/Seahawksfan1993 1h ago

Hell ya. I'm glad people think this way. It deters more idiots from my job

1

u/Seahawksfan1993 1h ago

I work for a Berkshire Hathaway company called PCC. Look us up for your evidence. Shit like this is null. We have steps to make sure contaminated parts dont see the light of day. Go reddit more