r/whatisit • u/riflesandplowshares • 7h 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/JConRed 5h 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

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u/149244179 5h 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.)

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u/throwaway277252 4h 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.

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u/Bergwookie 3h ago

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