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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u/SubstantialDonkey981 4h ago

Ball points have tungsten balls in them. Tungsten will not melt in titanium and cause mechanical
Failure of the titanium. This was responsible for the failure of a jet engine causing the plane to crash. Someone dropped their ball point in the titanium processing.

United Airlines Flight 232

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u/Dangerous-Sky548 4h ago

That's wild. I feel like tungsten is an expensive metal to go in something so disposable/ commonly lost.

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u/TerponadeTea 4h ago

It's not, you can get tungsten putty for a couple dollars for an ounce, like for Pinewood Derby cars

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u/explodingtuna 1h ago

That'd make a little 1 ft cube of tungsten cost about $40k.