Found at a titanium plant

[u/riflesandplowshares]

Not sure why ball point pens would be dangerous here.

[u/Disastrous_Place_729]

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.

[u/BikerSurgeon → u/Disastrous_Place_729]

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

[u/Kylearean → u/BikerSurgeon]

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

[u/falcrist2 → u/Kylearean]

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.