Not sure if they changed their policy or what, but I called them and they don't sell any metal...
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Oh well, it was a thought.
And a good one at that! I really do appreciate the referral. Just didn't work out is all. Thanks for trying, Warren.
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I noticed your density chart contains a lot of battery chemicals, which inspired me to look up battery weight and volumes. After some units conversion, it appears that batteries are denser than steel, but I'm not sure how tight you can pack the cells into your space. There will always be some dead space between cells. If my scratchpad calc is right, 100lbs of D batteries edge to edge will fit in a 2ft square about 2 inches tall. Stack 6 of these, and you have 8 cubic foot and 600lbs. You could get more dense packing by staggering, but my brain isn't up for that math tonight.
Safety and leakage are obvious concerns, but the price of dead batteries is pretty low.
As for suppliers, it seems like dead batteries should be every where. If not, get the kids one of those Nintendo DS thingy's for xmas.
If no kids and no dead batteries are around, buy some fresh ones, then you can have a cordless lathe .
my scratchpad is below..
.AA density.jpg
Last edited by Don McManus; 12-19-2011 at 2:10 AM. Reason: spelling
Don, first of all, that was pretty funny...a cordless lathe... Second, not sure I really follow the battery thing since steel weighs about 500 lbs per cubic foot, so 8 cubic feet of steel would be 4000 lbs vs the 600 lbs of batteries. Third, I only have about 3 cubic feet of space to fill, that is why concrete alone wouldn't really do the job because it would only be about 400 lbs filled completely. I think I'm going to get some scrap steel and mix it into concrete bricks, and stack them wherever I can. Interesting idea, though...thanks for the attempt.
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Cut a hole in the floor, build a form and pour concrete flat with the wood floor then bolt the lathe to it. 2,000 plus punds easy. This is in jest since it would be a lot of work and poses all sorts of issues. My real suggestion is tungsten... I hear it is really dense and CHEAP...
Of all the laws Brandolini's may be the most universally true.
Deep thought for the day:
Your bandsaw weighs more when you leave the spring compressed instead of relieving the tension.
You know, Van, if I KNEW for certain that the lathe would stay in that spot indefinately, I might consider the concrete idea...
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go to the local military base or nuke plant and get some depleted uranium, its that supposed to be one of the densest out there?
14x48 custom 2hp 9gear lathe
9 inch pre 1940 craftsman lathe
36 inch 1914 Sydney bandsaw (BEAST)
Wood in every shelf and nook and cranny,,, seriously too much wood!
This is why I shouldn't design after midnight...got excited when I saw the both nickel and cadmium and manganese were all as dense or denser than steel. Apparently the batteries themselves end up less dense after then get cased up.
On a funnier note, some one mentioned tungsten. We used to get this at work for making seismic sensing masses. It came in less than an inch in diameter, rough cast in 6 or 8" long bars. I can remember standing with one of the shipping guys staring at the wooden crate. It looked funny because the crate came in on its own pallet, and the crate itself was about the size of a 6 pack of cans. It was stoutly built with double layers of solid wood crating, with every surface was covered in warning labels "Heavy" "Lift from bottom", "weighs over 100lbs". We both thought, it can't be THAT heavy. And both of us tried lifting it, and realized why there was so many labels. It just couldn't ever look as heavy as it really was.
Unfortunately it cost about $10 a pound, and a little impractical. Then again, you could always start saving light bulb filaments
Don, I don't really follow the light bulb filaments thing since...
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Incandescent are made of tungsten wire, because it melts at a stupid high temperature(3300 deg C IIRC)