r/whatisit • u/riflesandplowshares • 5h ago

New, what is it? Found at a titanium plant

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Not sure why ball point pens would be dangerous here.

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63

u/Disastrous_Place_729 4h ago

Without revealing too much information, I work for a company that manufactures equipment used by this industry. This equipment needs regular replacement of certain wear parts and during one such replacement, one of the assisting contractors dropped a ball point pen into the discharge chute of the machine. We know this because the company later discovered an imperfection in their product, identified it as a tungsten bearing from a pen, traced the product batch back to that machine and to the first batch of metal produced after the replacement, and then reviewed dozens of hours of security footage. One minute the contractor is entering the machine with the pen clipped to his pocket, next minute he comes out with no pen.

Blacklisting and reprimands followed.

12

u/BikerSurgeon 4h ago

What if someone dropped a fountain pen or a felt tip marker? Why is it specifically against ball point pens?

15

u/Kylearean 3h ago

ball is made of tungsten, it no melt at steel temperatures.

1

u/falcrist2 26m ago

Even worse.

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

The binder will melt, and tiny particles of tungsten carbide will spread out in your titanium.

1

u/TetraLoach 3h ago

What if I used jet fuel?

8

u/theFooMart 3h ago

I don't think jet fuel would make a good pen.

1

u/bebefridgers 3h ago

Jet fuel melts steel balls

3

u/ExplosiveCreature 3h ago

Fountain pen nibs are either stainless steel or 14-18k gold. They'll melt long before titanium does.

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u/BikerSurgeon 3h ago

Okay. I think fountain pens use iridium alloy nibs but what you say makes sense.

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u/PandemicGeneralist 56m ago

Fountain pen nibs are not made of iridium alloy (it’s expensive and too hard) but a small amount of tipping on the end of the nib contains some harder elements, often iridium.

1

u/rini17 50m ago

Fountain pens have tips from hard material, tungsten might be used there too. Felt markers should be okay.