Just like any maker of things, there will never be enough tools. If he's lucky he may get enough tools for making other tools, but chances are for precision equipment he's always going to be better off purchasing.
@@Mister_Brown There's a reason why he went to Alibaba instead of somewhere else. 14k is a bargain for something like this and you have to wonder why.
I work with beryllium, lead, tritium, and uranium contaminated materials, with ultrahigh power invisible ultraviolet lasers (terawatts), and with highly radioactive neutron-activated structural materials. The beryllium scares me the most, and nothing else is even close. This video is terrifying. I know you were *trying* to be safe, and there are some good prudent precautions here, but we are talking about a metal that is toxic at NANOGRAM quantities per cubic meter here. This is the mass of a single grain of pollen in a volume of air the size of a washing machine. It is FANTASTICALLY toxic material approaching plutonium levels of toxicity. You need to obtain some swipe sampler papers and contact a testing company to send random surface swipes to from around your lab. There are some berylliosis induced lung cancer cases where the exposure levels were so low they couldn't even be measured with certainty. It is not worth taking the slightest chance with your health when dealing with this substance. It is absolutely no joke.
Its actually fairly rare to have the genetic predisposition to contract this disease. If youre not immediatly reactive to it, chances are itll never hurt you.
Is Beryllium just something you can get? Or does Nile have a license for this kinda stuff? Your description makes me think it should be highly controlled
Awesome video! I spent the first 3 years of my PhD working on bulk metallic glasses (BMGs)! In general I worked on computer simulations of amorphous materials with Corey O’Hern but a spent quite a bit of time specifically simulating BMGs. One of my closest friends works on the experimental side of things in Jan Shroers lab, making BMGs and studying which compositions are good or bad glass formers. I admire your tenacity, it was amazing to see you go from nothing to making a BMG. I do want to encourage you to reach out to people in academia next time you’re working on a project like this! You’re already reading their research papers and the authors of those papers are a great source of information and often willing to answer your questions or chat with you about their setups. Again, great video!
As a welder (mainly tig) a couple of major things that I noticed is that your tungsten rod got contaminated with your metal pool. A contaminated tungsten will tend to create a colder and less controllable arc as well as contaminating your metal puddle. I don’t know if this could apply to your situation, but when welding stainless (and steel) the tungsten is sharpened to a point to improve penetration of the metal (might melt the bottom of the puddle better). The final trick I can recommend is a tungsten alloy, a 2% thoriated tungsten is the industry standard for a good tungsten because it makes a more stable arc (slightly radioactive especially when ground, produces primarily alpha particles which do not penetrate skin) TLDR: -contaminated tungsten = contaminated alloy -contaminated tungsten creates poor arc -sharpening tungsten to point increases penetration (seems I may be incorrect about this, but it may be something to try still) -other tungsten alloys can result in a more stable arc (safer alternatives are available to thoriated, resulting arc stability will vary)
The tungsten is sharpened to influence the arc cone shape. The angle of sharpening affects penetration. A 60° grind will have far better penetration with a small puddle than 15° with a wide puddle
Yeah, a thought I had while watching was that the electrode most likely was a main point of failure, just going of the power supply. It´s one of those small things that often is cheaped out on, even if compared to the main device not being all that expensive. On the pointed electrode I have to disagree tho. For welding that is wanted, to focus the arc and increase penetration, and reduce the affected area and speed up the very localised melting. But there a more spread heating with less of a short term heating is required. There is less of a limit to how long the melting takes, and more of a requirement that it happens in as much of the material possible. So while less speedy localised, a less focussed electrode is probably better for this application.
W tig welder. As a maintenance fitter myself, last week I managed to weld aluminium to 310 stainless using a gasless mig, it was downright awful looking, not even silicon & a grinder could have fixed it, but it held 😂
It's called intuition. His prior observations of the underfilled well, and the un-melted puck.. led to the very reasonable expectation that a middle point exists.
I find it hilarious that hours of research went into trying to find out what the disk was. Only then did he decide to just rewatch the video he'd originally seen it in. Hours of more research and planning take place, and then when he wants the dimensions for his mold, he asks Steve Mould. At which point he tells him the exact dimensions, compositions, and their ratios. Tbh, I think having the "I'll figure it out myself until it's absolutely necessary to ask questions" approach can take much longer, but results in learning so much more. Nile rocks
spends over 16k in supplies and equipment dealing with stuff much worse than asbestos and arsenic just to bounce a BB in a tube THIS is why this channel is the best
The quintessential cornerstone of a NileRed video is buying an overly expensive and complicated piece of equipment specifically to complete the project at hand.
29:40 Your electrode touched the molten metal contaminating the rod. I'm a tig welder, this stuff happens all the time. The puff of smoke, the sooty ash where it happened, the arc flutter, the distinct green hue around the arc. Seen it more times than I can count. It was the rod making contact with the metal, no doubt about it. 45:05 I also notice you didn't clean the electrode after. That's why the arc is green and is pulling to the left slightly.
I'm not as knowledgeable as you about welding but do you think he had a hard time seeing the electrode distance from viewing it with a camera and not a welding visor?
It’s great seeing this channel. I’m an organic chemist (worked in industry for 25+ years), but I was once a clandestine chemist (I do not recommend unless you like getting your door kicked in early in the morning), and seeing a combination of his curiosity and skill is very satisfying. The style of delivery is very good too. (I wonder how many chemists watch this channel - I imagine a lot).
Interesting. There is a story there (and in your channel name) but it _seems_ you are a reformed character now. I remember a fellow student (chemist) who lost his eyebrows while at school. Kept his eyesight fortunately.
NileRed 2026: I broke down and bought this super custom, doomsday looking device. All these tubes and lines do things that I'll explain later in the video. It only set me back $538,284. Thank you to all my Patreons and RUclips Members, whom without you I couldn't do this project! Now then, I will begin creating my own gold nuggets from just these simple chemicals! xD
The good news is this arc melter should prove useful for a lot of other projects. If nothing else, it would make it super easy to make small samples of just about any hard to find metal alloy he could ever want.
@NileRed when I got to graduate school, there had been a terrible accident with an arc melter. The failure was the pressure relief valve on the chamber. Argon gas was heated inside the chamber, and without a functioning relief valve, the pressure increased to the point that the glass viewport window exploded, throwing glass splinters into the head of the person who was using the equipment. Please make sure your system has a double, redundant, pressure relief valve. And thanks for the amazing content.
Reposting my top level comment as a reply here just to try to ensure he sees it - I work with beryllium, lead, large amounts of tritium, and uranium contaminated materials, with ultrahigh power invisible ultraviolet lasers (terawatts), and with highly radioactive neutron-activated structural materials. The beryllium scares me the most, and nothing else is even close. This video is terrifying. I know he was trying to be safe, and there are some good prudent precautions here, but we are talking about a metal that is toxic at NANOGRAM quantities per cubic meter here. This is the mass of a single grain of pollen in a volume of air the size of a washing machine. It is FANTASTICALLY toxic material approaching plutonium levels of toxicity. He needs to obtain some swipe sampler papers and contact a testing company to send random surface swipes to from around his lab. There are some berylliosis induced lung cancer cases where the exposure levels were so low they couldn't even be measured with certainty. It is not worth taking the slightest chance with your health when dealing with this substance. It is absolutely no joke.
I work at the only place where we make pure berrilium in the US and most of the world actually. We wear hepa filtered helmets. Like 1400 bucks a helmet. Super safe but we got to make sure we don't get it on us because that's how you get exposed
I'm a grad student in the last year of my physics PhD working in a condensed matter physics research lab. In my undergrad, I spent 3 years working in a lab that primarily used an arc furnace for sample synthesis. Watching you go through all the different steps of madness and despair that I did when I was learning to use the system brings back memories. I'm really impressed you managed to get such good results by teaching yourself! That said, watching your video I saw there are still a few mistakes, things like not grinding the arc tip to the right shape, not moving the arc correctly, not arcing for long enough, etc. I know the project is done, but I imagine you'd want to keep using the system in the future, I'd be happy to share some tips, tricks, and stories if you're interested! Through my work I also know about all sorts of different kinds of materials you can grow with this arc system, things like high entropy alloys and some pretty neat quantum materials. I know RUclips comments are... not a reliable source of information, so I also sent you an email with some proof that I am who I say I am. Looking forwards to seeing what else you do with the arc furnace!
Coming from somebody who is not a PHD in anything but has used a TIG (Tungsten Inert Gas) Welder, I will agree with you about grinding the tip of the tungsten. There are different angles to grind the tungsten at which vastly affect the arc and how it will melt different metals.
For Americans and elsewhere... Joe Bloggs = to- John Doe or Joe Blow with Jo Bloggs = to Jane Doe. Also from the UK A. N. Other for "Any" gender. (See what I did there not saying "either" gender to be politically correct... I'm so goddamn woke). Signed... John *Q. Public ╚═ಠₒಠ═╝ **Q. Is a placeholder like John Q. Doe It doesn't stand for queer as has been suggested.
@@jerbear1204nah you have no idea how toxic beryllium is. Like don’t get me wrong I’m not saying companies don’t do that, I’m just saying compared to beryllium, it’s not even close.
Most x ray tubes are made with beryllium windows so its not because working with beryllium is dangerous. I worked in xray tube production and as long as you're careful the risks are pretty minimal.
Honestly as cool as the metallic glass is, I'd be happy to just have a perfectly-round disc of the iron or titanium. There's just something satisfying about how clean and perfect it is compared to a chunk of raw unfinished metal that really pleases my acoustism. I'm also fond of brass and bronze, would love to have a disc made of something like that.
Love to see this video on metallic glasses, the materials that I did my PhD on and even more happy to see that the papers Nile highlighted in the video are from my PhD advisor, his PhD advisor, my postdoctoral advisor and other collaborators. It is not common for youtubers to delve so deep into materials science, especially into advanced metallic alloys such as Metallic Glasses. The amorphous nature of MGs is what gives them that bouncy nature. Metallic glasses have a high coefficient of restitution that causes the ball to bounce. Btw, you don't need toxic metals like Beryllium or expensive metals like palladium to make these in large sizes. You can make them with much cheaper, non-toxic metals like copper, aluminum, zirconium like what I invented during my PhD. I have 2 worlds records for the biggest copper & Hafnium based metallic glasses ever produced. We've produced these in the size of the steel cylinders Nile was using in the video (in both diameter & height) in my lab so you can imagine how big we can make them. MGs were invented by my academic great grandfather in the 50's but we only started making them in large sizes 90's onwards. The metallic glasses I invented have been the most recent major advancement in this area. There were a few things Nile could’ve done better to make better disk samples such as used ultra-high purity Argon, slowly increased the arc power rather than expose the arc to all metals at once; let the low melting temp elements melt and combine first before the high temperature ones, cleaning the copper mold and crucible after every run to prevent contamination etc. The thing Nile mentioned about the metallic glass not being safe to grind and polish because of beryllium is not true. Once the beryllium has been absorbed into the metal matrix, it is very safe. I literally produced thousands of these metallic glasses in my lab during my PhD, and some in very big sizes and they are all safe. For anyone trying to get their hands on these including Nile, the best way is to reach out to universities, labs, some small companies and people working on metallic glasses. They’d be happy to set you up with some samples or at least tell you the best way to produce them although I have to give it to Nile, he is 75-80% there. Also, you don’t need that much of Titanium for gettering. 5-6 pellets are enough.
It's fascinating to see how your work on metallic glasses (MGs) is being highlighted in public forums! As an electrical engineer, I'm particularly intrigued by the potential applications of MGs in our field, especially given their unique properties like high strength and elasticity. Seeing the developments from your PhD and collaborations with other leading experts, it's clear these materials have a lot to offer. I was wondering about a few aspects: From your experience, how do metallic glasses hold up under long-term stress or repeated thermal cycling? Are there specific applications where their durability has outperformed conventional materials? Silicon transistors face challenges with thermal stability at high temperatures, leading to performance degradation. Could the amorphous structure of metallic glasses provide better thermal stability and potentially enhance the reliability of transistors in high-temperature environments? In transistor development, the dielectric properties of materials are crucial. Have there been investigations into the dielectric behavior of metallic glasses? Could they potentially serve as effective gate dielectrics or insulating layers in MOSFET designs?
OMG this is metalic glass. My thesis theme. I have a few comments. 1) The main part is in cooling. The way of heating is actually mostly irrelevant 2) Each metal in alloy actually has its function in either achieving eutectic system, or controlling the diffusion field around potential crystalisation points, that can spoil the result 3) I believe some inconsistency you got ties to the fact the process is very sensitive to specific kinetic curves. This means the plot of temperature over time must be exactly the same to achive the same results 4) Mechanical treatment changes the midrange structures of the AMA. This can be exploited to create bigger chunks, but also it probably means that you have turned the upper layers of your disc into usual metal alloy by grinding it. 5) To check that what you have got is really a glass - you can try multiple experiments, it is not just about bouncieness, there are a lot of properties that are different for amorphous states. The simple one is probably exposing to fire - not the plasma from wielder, just usual fire. It usually has very low temperature at which it transforms into crystal, releasing a lot of free-volume. I would try to use a lighter on cut off chunks to see whether they'll start to cover in cracks immediately (you may see somewhat leaf-like structures on the surface just from a little of heat). 6) I've mostly worked with stripes, using spinnings and splatters, but I read some studies on volumetric samples, and saw a similar disk. It was created in a way more complex setup, with a more finicky slow cooling technique. It requires the process of monitoring the volume of plate for subcritical size crystals, and removing them physically during the cooling. The initial formula has to account for the loss of the material that will get crystallised and removed. It is way harder, but it gives you more traditional metallurgy control over heat curve, and it is possible to grow a disk of this size with such a process, while esuring it has a flat glassy surface (no post-processing).
@@acoral1035just FYI, I love you. I had no idea of "metallic glass" before today to speak of, and now I know quite a few things. A day when I learn something new is a day well spent ❤
Me: this beryllium doesn't sound too scary NileRed: I was scared of this beryllium Me: beryllium is terrifying, and I now have to make sure I'm never near it for the rest of my life.
The tiniest bit of it in the air (nanometer scale) is lethal. Even without dying, slight contamination can lead to lung cancer and an early death. This video is scarier then some horror movies, I worry for this man.
@@Entropy67 it's important to remember that you're only susceptible to berylliosis if you have a specific genetic trait that is fairly rare. It's not lethal for everyone, only those with that specific mutation.
Hi, a PhD material physics student doing MG-related research here. Metallic glasses are somehow very rarely talked about in yt educator space, so Im happy to see this and great job! I really think you should've tried some of those non-toxic bulk metallic glasses, you can definitely make some of these with this setup and the bounciness shouldn't be that much different in principle, since the energy normally escapes through formation of defects, but for MGs there aren't any defect forming mechanisms that are present in crystals - no vacancies, no lines, no stacking etc. So i am actually curious how different other MGs would be.
Are they really "rare and new material?" I remember MG mentioned a couple of times 5 years ago when I was doing my undergrad, and while we only talked about basic industrial production and differences in molecular structure between normal crystal lattice and glass, I never felt like I was presented any new information. More like... Obscure info 😅
As far as internet tells me, producing an ingot of metallic glass is something that started to be comfortably possible in the 90s - so around 30 years old material science
This is some cool metallurgy work. At some point I'd love to see a video where you refine some bauxite into aluminum. Since it's such an involved process.
Took me a hot second to figure out that "atomic trampoline" did not, in fact, mean a trampoline that launches things into the air using the power of a nuclear weapon...
What makes Nigel a mad scientiest is not so much the capability but the fact that almost *every* project of his starts with "If the world will not provide, I will create". The man is raw desire, ambition, and skill.
@@stillcantthinkofaname4800 yea it's supposed to be 10% luck, 20% skill, 5% pleasure and 50% pain and 15% concentrated power of will (by weight, not volume)
@@theshuman100 "hello there, today we have a trinket I found in a desert sometime in 1980s... it's quite pretty, with like...all these little golden statues n stuff... also found this old shiny gold cup thing, but it isn't rlly that interesting..."
Idk if this would help or not but sharpening the electrode provides a more defined and deeper penetrating arc using less heat to deliver the same results. Be sure to grind it to a point with the grain of the grind running towards the point instead of in a circle. This is done with tungsten electrodes when TIG welding. This looks extremely similar in concept
Having worked in the aerospace industry we did grind beryllium using oil as it would not evaporate leaving dust. I also use electron guns in a vacuum chamber with various chemicals, with metal materials you want to heat slowly as some materials have trapped air pockets. Blasting at full power I would talk you out of. Slow and steady. When you have different melting points the lower ones will stabilize the environment. I liked that you placed your electrode at an angle causing the pool to rotate.
@@platinumsky845 The purity of sample is just how much extra stuff is in it, like specific contaminants. No matter what you are most likely going to have small, microscopic air bubbles trapped in the metal as it cools and solidifies, specifically from outgassing. I don't work with welding, but I've done a LOT of stuff with solder over the last 10 years with electronics repair, and a very common issue with that is planar microvoids. These are literally microscopic air cavities that form in solder as it solidifies, resulting in a weaker joint that can easily be broken from mechanical stress. These voids usually form as a result of flux and outgassing. Regardless of alloy composition, I have a feeling this is something that would be an issue with any kind of molten metal. I have a feeling eutectic alloys would especially have this issue. To handle outgassing you'd wanna keep the metal molten long enough to let the air bubbles escape. No matter the purity of sample, it still had to be melted and solidified in a mold at some point in the process to turn it into a sample. Even if done in a complete oxygen-free environment, it is entirely possible some of the shielding gas used could get trapped in the molten metal, and this gas would come back out (possibly violently) when the metal is melted. Basically, the purity of sample does not dictate whether or not it will have air bubbles. I don't know if Nile reads comments but if he happens to see this, I bet something that would greatly improve the quality of all cast metal projects would be to sand the surface of the molds he is using. I was surprised he did not do this. Sanding and polishing the surface of the mold would assuredly result in a much cleaner looking surface finish for your casted metal. A little wet sanding under the fume hood for the finished product would probably clean them up just fine.
His deadpan facial expressions and serious demeanor, coupled with the general goofiness of his look and the chaotic nature of what he does, is god tier, level 100 entertainment.
I NEED a piece of that stuff to glue to the face of my #1 golf driver. Think about the controversy during the weekly golf league competition. Some of them will lose their minds when this old man hits a ball 340 yards. There will be hearings and meeting, and rulings and much angst over an unfair advantage. The entertainment alone will be worth the effort. I applaud your perseverance and effort. Really well done.
@@crispy_338You know he’s melting Beryllium right? And the metals he’s melting can’t be exposed to oxygen. That smart guys decisions seem strange to you because you’re ignorant on the topic.
Looks sweet, and probably alot more lucrative than being the greatest lion armorer without a very good forge these days? Or make an outer holographic advanced spaceship shell of metallic glass or at least one component, with thermodynamic transfusion probably?
@@keeferChiefer Filling a vacuum chamber full of argon really doesn't require extreme cutting-edge technology. Everything you need here could be purchased for a fraction of the cost. Like I stated, the most expensive parts are probably the chiller and the machined copper parts. 😟
I only watched the first minute and decided to do some research and make my own. It’s the perfect project to keep me busy while my vent hood is being repaired. Had to take a break though my lungs are hurting for some reason
@@NileRed but imagine the collab potential if you could make it happen though? you make the bead, and they film the explode!! It would take away your excuse to buy $100k+ cameras since they have enough to spare, not sure if that's a demotivation? 😅
Till I got to the beryllium part I was wondering how the heck an amorphous alloy can can cause asbestos-like mechanical damage. Beryllium isn't that uncommon in industry though, it shows up in specialty alloys and ceramics, I suspect this alloy isn't widely available in discs just because it's hard to work and there's not much industrial use for it, as far as I know most amorphous metal is in ribbon form and used for things like transformer cores.
Beryllium is somewhat safe so long as it’s a solid and there’s no dust. The dust/vapor is the problem. You can handle blocks of beryllium without much precaution (so long as you don’t have any open wounds)
My grandfather passed in the mid-nineties from Berylliosis after many years working in a beryllium ore factory. Hell...he wasn't even a laborer...he was either President or CEO for the factory (I can't remember)...but he always made the time daily to walk through the factory and at least greet each of his employees. I was born in '91, and he was on full-time oxygen since before I was even born. Beryllium is no joke!
@@tolep Well, seeing as he hasn't taken a breath in almost 30 years, I can't imagine a mask is gonna do much to help him at this point. Lol. (Made for an entertaining mental image, though! 😂)
Honestly, I think the most important thing Nile contributes in each video is his detailing of the manufacturing process for these rare or strange materials and chemicals he makes. And this is just the public, youtube version of it! it's amazing how he can get such vauge instructions scattered in pieces across the internet, and work on it for months and reliably create what he wanted. A good example apart from this video is the purple gold!
Agreed aggregating this information on one channel is crazy useful, and it's really nice to see the learning process and not just, "Do X,Y,Z > > Success". I'll obviously never do the majority of what he is doing, but a lot of the information and logical steps are transferable to other areas. Seeing failures and their solutions is really great.
I've thought that before while watching Nile. If you were trying to make the same things; watching these videos first would save you so much time and headache
That's because Nile got this from his father His father flew a Plane on Nine eleven.. Without checking all the details, He wouldn't have been successful.
“I really wanted to buy one” “Impossible to buy” “Not beings able to buy one made me want one even more” “Im gonna have to make one myself” Its the purple gold situation all over again…
"Equipment is going to handle deadly fumes" "Buys it at common online shop" I feel Nile played the guy who goes to the dollar store to buy condoms... gladly he didn't roll an 1
Here’s an idea with commercial potential in defence industry for you to try: About a year ago I came to the idea of a “trampoline” kind of armour, which by my calculations should be 4-5 lighter than an ARMOX 600T armour plate. The first approach to creating a trampoline armour plate should be based on UHMPE or kevlar sheets strung across rubber harness on some metal frame. (This variant has little to do with chemistry, so it’s not interesting for your channel probably.) But the second approach should be “elastic metallic”: you take 200-300 m of spring, stack it together (randomly directed) by layers and interconnect individual springs in many joints by welding or other method, so that a plate 5-10 cm thick is formed, and finally you just harden and quench the plate.
@@AJ--212 true, I believe its mostly due to the hardened surface but the larger mass plays a big roll in rebounding the energy as well. Would be cool to see how it compares to a similarly sized anvil
A few ideas for next time: 1. Instead of cleaning the air inside the tank with low pressure, try it with high pressure. Pushing more argon in, then evacuating until about athmospheric pressure. This way you avoid sucking air in through tiny leaks. 2. Since beryllium has a melting point much lower than the arc used, I suspect you're evaporating it. If you lay it under a layer of other stuff to shield it from the direct arc, it might not explode like this. 3. It looks like you're contaminating your material with the tungsten electrode. Try holding more distance between the electrode and the puddle. You can also sharpen the electrode to have a more focused arc. Look into tig welding electrodes for how it should look. If it's sharp, you'll also easily detect if you lost some part of the electrode. 4. Grinding is not a huge problem at all, if done wet. Grind on a diamond stone, submerged in oil. The oil will catch all residue and avoid any airborne dust. You can get a much nicer surface like this. If you spent that much time on this project, why not look into other alloys which contain less problematic elements? There must be research on bounciness of amorphous metals, right?
Your comment is so under rated. I thought the same thing about the tungsten electrode. It has been many years since my welding days, but I thought I remember the tig electrodes looking slightly different. Great ideas.
I suspect that if a company settled on that alloy to sell commercially, probably there wasn't a better one. Why would a company choose to work with beryllium?
8:42 I had the absolute privilege of taking a materials science course from the lead author on this paper like 7 or 8 years ago. He would just casually hand us rods of experimental metallic glass alloys (containing Pd, Au, Be, etc) and have us break them using test equipment. They were insanely strong... good times
That's a super cool project. I like how you take us through the whole process with its ups and downs. That's real science. One interesting tidbit I learned at a conference: Beryllium is the metal of choice for telescope mirrors because it has an extremely low density compared to its stiffness (high specific stiffness). Telescope mirrors are often polished to fractions of a wavelength of their desired shape (tens of nanometers)! Because the tolerances are so tight, the deformation of the mirror sagging under its own weight starts to become important, and since telescopes can be aimed in any direction, the way that the mirror sags can't be predicted and accounted for. Beryllium sags less because its stiff while also weighing less. I also heard that beryllium mirrors are extremely expensive, and hearing about the safety risks of working with it, I now see why!
My grandpa was a machinist and did a fair amount of work on things containing beryllium mostly beryllium copper. He talked about how they would machine it grind it and polish it safely without releasing the dust into the air. They would preform all operations cutting with as much oil as they could get on it taking really small cuts Ideally submergeing the part in oil. Then to gring or polish it was all done submerged in oil. Then the oil was safely disguarded after machining was complete. I would do more looking into it if you wanted to try and polish the discs to make them more perfect. I know my grandpa had a special box that would lock onto his milling machine that would allow him to fill it with oil then machine in there. The box was complete with its own keyway in the bottom to secure the piece being worked on. Great video with lots of great information very informative.
This was my thought too. There would obviously be microscopic particles of dust in that bag already and he just aggrevated them. Open that bag and you potentially have floating particles still. I'd probably let that bag sit for a good hour before even opening it, then I'd do that extremely carefully. Don't mess about when it comes to severe respiratory risks.
@@cornbits but now there's unnecessary Be dust contaminating the surfaces inside the hood, which can be transferred to anything that comes out of the hood, and which can be kicked up again the next time he opens the sash, all of which will increase his cumulative exposure
@@timsmith1579 tell me you've never worked with a fume hood in a lab environment without telling me you've never worked with a fume hood in a lab environment. There are clean up procedures for a reason, down to how to properly remove you gloves after handling danger chemical or Bio hazard. You assume everything you touched is contanminated and trat it appropriately. Even if he didn't handle the bag in that manner I'm sure he would still clean it as though it were contaminated.
@@cornbits i have more experience than you imagine and i hope your faith in nilered's diligence is warranted; developing and enacting appropriate procedures for unusual hazards like Be requires careful thought.
Metal Glass developed at Cal Tech was eventually injection molded. When you evacuate your chamber you fill it with Argon until the pressure is neutral. Maybe try pressurizing the chamber with the Argon. Your disks have the characteristics of very low injection pressure. With higher pressure differential the disks would conform to the polished surfaces of the mold better. Enjoyed the video of your journey. Well Done!
I won't lie, I genuinely popped off when I saw all five of them together. This was an incredible journey to witness, even in video form, and I'm really happy you got the level of satisfaction you wanted out of this. I genuinely feel like you could write a paper about each and every one of your videos, and this one would probably be one of the coolest.
@@westie430 why else would he spend 2 minutes just unboxing and explaining where certain wires get plugged in? That adds nothing to the video except time.
23:59 The fact that beryllium, which can be deadly if its dust ever gets breathed in, is shipped in an easily rippable and openable plastic baggie is just wild to me 😂
I’m not at all surprised you had to follow specific protocols to make the mold work. Just my experience casting lead bullets taught me how all that works. You need to have a specific lead temperature a specific temperature and the mold and definitely have the right pouring speed.
Four years ago, i found your videos during covid. Now, I just started my first week going into college for chemical engineering. You were the person who made me realize my love for chemistry, thank you!
When i look at this, i can already imagine how insane this experiment is. Nile work so hard on those experiment so i think we should like and subscribe!
14k for a machine that will allow you to melt metals extremely quickly, safely, and in a completely inert environment free of oxygen is actually a really good investment for a chemistry channel with 7m followers. I’m no chemist, but melting metals seems quite cumbersome with constant oxidation. Glad you didn’t regret the purchase.
@@SimonClarkstone he’s actually used the machine again since the metal glass video, it’s actually probably the most efficient and safest way to melt anything really. It’s instant and vacuum safe so no danger 🤷🏼♂️
nile has that voice where he can say that he got a box of puppies for free, and then say his grandma died in the same sentence, and sound perfectly normal
I worked with some of this exact equipment as a manufacturing technician. Quick tip I can give you for the vacuum lines. When it comes to the grease, less is more. You basically want to just get your o-rings moist and have no excess grease, otherwise you're likely to get air leaks that you can't see but your instrumentation can sure tell is there.
Having spent 10 years of my career in metallurgical and material sciences, I knew that this was going to be a very tricky project. It was apparent to me that after you had cast the disk, the vast majority of the issues you had related to the condition of the surface. If you had a laboratory bench grinder, it’s simple to polish these very flat. Also, if you were to lap them using a lapping machine, you would not need to use the glue and could have a better surface contact to the base material. I think you could easily double the bouncing time using this method. But I know you you’re not going to do that because that wasn’t the point of the video. Maybe it will be a good reference for you if you ever try to do another project like this. Glad you pushed through the issues and finish the project. Well done!
@@hx5525 laboratory bench grinder is essentially a lapping machine that runs under a constant stream of water. There’s no dust. Most of the time, depending on the kind of material you’re grinding, the waste water can run directly into the sewer because it is nontoxic. In the US, specifically Texeas, the alloys he created would probably fall into that category
@@nikkiofthevalley laboratory bench grinder can get much more flat. I suspect (but I’m not certain) a significant amount of mechanical energy is lost using the gluing method. Having two meeting services that are nearly perfectly flat lose much less energy.
@@ferdinandionita1216 Christ on a stick, you bible-thumpers take that shit too far sometimes. You follow whatever teachings you want buddy, just don't hold completely random strangers accountable to them, unless you like disappointment.
I would suggest flowing the argon when melting those oxide forming metals. Vaporization of the native oxides are contaminating the atmosphere. Somthing around 20-30CFH, possibly higher. The black plume and other melt defects are from dipping tungsten in the melt. Best to stop and clean electrode if that happens. Some type of closed loop thermal control on the mold would let you run it hotter and not have to flip the sample, and potentially aid in the casting process. Thanks for the interesting content, keep having fun.
Excellent video!! I have a few follow-up recommendations: 1.) Use the vacuum pump to remove the air from the bouncy tube and see how much longer it takes to decay to a stop. 2.) If the bounce is caused by preventing defects from forming in the glass, they can still form in the ball bearing. I'd like to see a metallic glass ball dropped onto the flat metallic glass disk under a vacuum. Would be a great way to utilize a non-toxic metallic glass that you could then grind in a ball mill into a sphere. Alternately, use a ceramic ball from a ceramic ball bearing and see what you get. 3.) mount a sound coil onto the bottom of the disk assembly, and tune the frequency. In a vacuum, you may be able to get the ball to bounce perpetually. 4.) If you do get around to making a non-toxic disk, there are simple ways to polish the surface to a flatness below 2 light bands. That along with careful leveling should keep the ball from bouncing side to side and touching the glass tube.
Guy I know worked at the nuclear test site. He described some of the cameras they used for high speed (VERY high speed) filming of the "experiments", and they used a mirror in the center spinning at some ungodly RPM. Occasionally, something would be slightly off and the mirror would explode into dust. Guess what the mirror, that occasionally turned into dust, was made of? Beryllium.
@@MR-qi5lc I can't remember the details, but the same guy was telling me about a beryllium contamination accident happening there (I don't think it was camera related -- maybe in the machine shop?) and how serious everything got really fast. Building shut down, decontamination, checking employees for contamination, etc. That federal contractor, at least, didn't fuck around with safety. Another retired "experiment" guy was telling me about how he was next to a coworker who was handling plutonium in a glove box. They noticed that one of his glove layers had a cut, so they called the safety team to come deal with it... Guy I was talking to was told to stay in the far corner of room while safety did what they did -- and the coworker with the cut glove had to stand there, hands in the glove box near _plutonium_, for well more than an hour while the safety team just prepped everything for him to just move away for further decontamination.
@@MR-qi5lcpeople who work in nuclear facilities get less radiation than other people because everything is shielded so well that they are exposed to fewer cosmic rays
@@buka9993 hahaha sounds plausible that something like that could happen, probably has to do with hormones although ngl, I have no idea how hormones work. I'm not going to look it up, if you drop a link I'll definitely will, but thanks for the input, that's funny haha.
@@ritishify cant link on yt. They fed people pinto beans and they farted into a tube. Ladies have approx 3x more sulphur in their farts. More sulphur = stinkier fart. So ladies have much more rancid winds.
You are really one of the coolest guys out there, putting all this work, and time into your videos all while educating the viewer through your processes. I love it
My favorite thing about your videos is that you show the reality of science and make the process and its failures feel fun. You’re on the last step halfway through the video, because no matter what every project is a learning process that needs many tweaks. Keep it up Nile red
I love how all of Nile's videos are like an anime, there's the arc of ascension, then he gets disappointed and in the end he finds a way to fix the problems
Berylium: Omewa shindeiru Nileredu: Hah, I have mastered chemistry and safety. I will not fall for your tricks berylium. You can't force me to grind your gears. Also I have this safety masku, handily ready as a sensei-chemist. Berylium: NANI?
As a welder, I panicked at 20:59 at first, went "NILE, PLEASE, YOUR WELD HOOD, YOU'RE GOING TO GO BLIND AND SUNBURN THE SH!T OUT OF YOUR FACE, WTF" but, judging by the fact that he didn't flinch when it turned on and presumably still has functioning eyes, I'm assuming there was a screen of some sort over the glass lol
NO WAY! I never would've expected to see Grand Illusions mentioned on a Nile channel, even if it was for just a single second. Tim is a very old and interesting gentlemen from Britain that has been collecting toys and novelty items for the majority of his 82 y/o life with a great passion. His treasure trove is incredibly vast, so much so that even after a decade of regularly posting showcase videos to YT he's still pulling out stuff we've never seen every single video. I'm fairly confident that you could find all manner of things in it that could pique your curiosity.
I've been subscribed to Grand Illusions for a decade now, and I was amused to see him mentioned in Steve Mould's video last year. Now Nile makes a video based on Steve's. Amazing!
“It’s perfectly safe for the consumer. As long as they don’t sand it. Or grind it. Or drop it. Or break it in any way. And you know now that I think about it pets would probably be a bad idea around it…”
@@FrenkieWest32 Happy to admit up front that I've never handled something posing the kinds of hazard associated with Beryllium, and perhaps I'm being overly cautious, BUT: if there was dust already in the bag created during the shipping process, opening the bag and then dropping it even short distance seems like a decidedly careless choice. I haven't worked in a lab for some time, and maybe I'm paranoid, but this seems like a no-no given the hazards described here. Especially as, at this point, the fume cupboard door would still be open. The seemingly exaggerated way Nile did this might indicate that the risks are actually lower than he made out, and that he was just playing with us for effect. I hope so!
51:03 it wasn’t just the glue. Cutting the nub ends allowed the disk to properly reverberate. Having the nubs allowed the vibrations to cancel themselves.
Beryllium is the Devil's metal. Once I broke by accident a coated beryllium window on a soft x-ray detector, took to my feet and slammed the door behind me. The room was off limits until my employer had employed a decontamination company and they had deemed it safe.
How are there not more of this comment . I was expecting to see thousands of comments just saying “anyways, so I started blasting”. This is the only one I’ve found.
Man, the ability to melt stuff without oxidation is a HUGE step up. You could make all kinds of alloys with a set up like that, albeit in smaller quantities
The vacuum too should reduce air bubbles too right? Just dump a bunch of metal in a crucible and no matter how much you mix it, you'll end up with a result that looks way less impressive than this. Polish up those discs and they'll be far superior.
@ArmourGX @ArmourGX Not quite. As you saw in the video, voids can absolutely still occur as a result of the molten metal freezing at inopportune moments. Ways to mitigate that are preheating the mold, which is basically impossible with his set up, or by the trick Nile uses in the video by heating the metal as hot as possible right before and where it enters the mold. I've never used an arc welder, but that's what I THINK made it work
I'm normally late to these videos but I have to say, 17:30 is possibly one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Glowing heat ripples travelling through seemingly transparent liquid iron, can you imagine what the Earth's ferrous core must look like?
This content is amazing. A happy guy explaining incredible physics and chemistry. Enjoying sharing! What more is to ask of you! It's a mad world at the moment, but your posts bring a level that too many people ignore. Thanks so much. Take care of yourself and please keep on posting.
If it were a metallic glass alloy that contains no beryllium and has like half the performance of the beryllium one, it would be brilliant in that it's much more feasible to mass produce commercially or as a kid's toy that has any child-proofness, knowing that this wouldn't go full on asbestos mode when you chip it. That guy who won the prize better put it in a drawer with some 10 kilograms of styrofoam to prevent it chip and only play with it in a fume hood.
the reason why I love watching Nile is cause he has no problem spending days and weeks and thousands of dollars on science experiments of pure entertainment, weeks of research and over 20k dollars later and he made a metal ball bouncy, good job Nile I love it
Your browser is holding you back. Level up with Opera here: opr.as/08-Opera-browser-nilered
No
swag
Oh ok
no
Swag
I love how Nile is slowly building up a plethora of extremely niche chemistry equipment so eventually he never has to buy anything again
We need to get him to make a video of all the random machines he has and what each of them are used for!
@@ethkaha he needs to reveal their names
The nature of science is ever changing, therefore so are it's instruments.
Just like any maker of things, there will never be enough tools. If he's lucky he may get enough tools for making other tools, but chances are for precision equipment he's always going to be better off purchasing.
Next month on nile red: So i bought this supercooled, hyper insulated hadron collider from alibaba for a small price of $ 465,000 😂😂😂😂😂
Reassured by someone in Alibaba said “it’s ok” is just another level of trust.
Trust me bro
you get what you pay for in alibaba and he did pay 14k
@@NinthSettler that's really the secret for alibaba, pay real money
Use this for car bumpers 😁
@@Mister_Brown There's a reason why he went to Alibaba instead of somewhere else. 14k is a bargain for something like this and you have to wonder why.
I work with beryllium, lead, tritium, and uranium contaminated materials, with ultrahigh power invisible ultraviolet lasers (terawatts), and with highly radioactive neutron-activated structural materials. The beryllium scares me the most, and nothing else is even close. This video is terrifying. I know you were *trying* to be safe, and there are some good prudent precautions here, but we are talking about a metal that is toxic at NANOGRAM quantities per cubic meter here. This is the mass of a single grain of pollen in a volume of air the size of a washing machine. It is FANTASTICALLY toxic material approaching plutonium levels of toxicity. You need to obtain some swipe sampler papers and contact a testing company to send random surface swipes to from around your lab. There are some berylliosis induced lung cancer cases where the exposure levels were so low they couldn't even be measured with certainty. It is not worth taking the slightest chance with your health when dealing with this substance. It is absolutely no joke.
Well then hope he sees this comment. I also hope the alloy is non toxic and bonded throughout so when he broke off pieces he didn’t just kill himself.
Its actually fairly rare to have the genetic predisposition to contract this disease. If youre not immediatly reactive to it, chances are itll never hurt you.
@@skyrailmaxima How rare? Rare enough that it's fine to take a chance? LoL
Let's make it go UP! @NileRed need to see this!
Is Beryllium just something you can get? Or does Nile have a license for this kinda stuff? Your description makes me think it should be highly controlled
Awesome video! I spent the first 3 years of my PhD working on bulk metallic glasses (BMGs)! In general I worked on computer simulations of amorphous materials with Corey O’Hern but a spent quite a bit of time specifically simulating BMGs. One of my closest friends works on the experimental side of things in Jan Shroers lab, making BMGs and studying which compositions are good or bad glass formers.
I admire your tenacity, it was amazing to see you go from nothing to making a BMG. I do want to encourage you to reach out to people in academia next time you’re working on a project like this! You’re already reading their research papers and the authors of those papers are a great source of information and often willing to answer your questions or chat with you about their setups. Again, great video!
As a welder (mainly tig) a couple of major things that I noticed is that your tungsten rod got contaminated with your metal pool. A contaminated tungsten will tend to create a colder and less controllable arc as well as contaminating your metal puddle. I don’t know if this could apply to your situation, but when welding stainless (and steel) the tungsten is sharpened to a point to improve penetration of the metal (might melt the bottom of the puddle better). The final trick I can recommend is a tungsten alloy, a 2% thoriated tungsten is the industry standard for a good tungsten because it makes a more stable arc (slightly radioactive especially when ground, produces primarily alpha particles which do not penetrate skin)
TLDR:
-contaminated tungsten = contaminated alloy
-contaminated tungsten creates poor arc
-sharpening tungsten to point increases penetration (seems I may be incorrect about this, but it may be something to try still)
-other tungsten alloys can result in a more stable arc (safer alternatives are available to thoriated, resulting arc stability will vary)
w tig welder, i’m a mig welder mainly but i’ve done done a little bit of everything. was super cool seeing welding come into play in a nilered video:)
the second i heard “arc melter” i was like “awwwwwe yeeeeeahhhhh” lololololol
The tungsten is sharpened to influence the arc cone shape. The angle of sharpening affects penetration. A 60° grind will have far better penetration with a small puddle than 15° with a wide puddle
Yeah, a thought I had while watching was that the electrode most likely was a main point of failure, just going of the power supply. It´s one of those small things that often is cheaped out on, even if compared to the main device not being all that expensive.
On the pointed electrode I have to disagree tho. For welding that is wanted, to focus the arc and increase penetration, and reduce the affected area and speed up the very localised melting. But there a more spread heating with less of a short term heating is required. There is less of a limit to how long the melting takes, and more of a requirement that it happens in as much of the material possible. So while less speedy localised, a less focussed electrode is probably better for this application.
W tig welder.
As a maintenance fitter myself, last week I managed to weld aluminium to 310 stainless using a gasless mig, it was downright awful looking, not even silicon & a grinder could have fixed it, but it held 😂
The way he talks I feel like every next sentence is going to end with “and it went horribly wrong”
gotta keep em on their toes
My farts are better than NileRed’s farts 💨
Niles is the only channel where RUclips's 1.5x playback speed option pays off.
Must be new here.
i just think it's annoying
he talks
like this
and its
obnoxious
“So Nile, why did you decide to try 30% extra metal?”
“It came to me in a dream”
It's called intuition. His prior observations of the underfilled well, and the un-melted puck.. led to the very reasonable expectation that a middle point exists.
Dream maxxers 1, source maxxers 0
'i get my news from the only reliable source. cryptic visions and dreams'
Complete this sentence Nile said in this video:
"First thing I did was to reach out Steve Mould to get the exact dimensions of his di*k"
/
Science. /\/
I find it hilarious that hours of research went into trying to find out what the disk was. Only then did he decide to just rewatch the video he'd originally seen it in. Hours of more research and planning take place, and then when he wants the dimensions for his mold, he asks Steve Mould. At which point he tells him the exact dimensions, compositions, and their ratios.
Tbh, I think having the "I'll figure it out myself until it's absolutely necessary to ask questions" approach can take much longer, but results in learning so much more. Nile rocks
It's also down to how committed he was and the solo research built his confidence in feasibility/enthusiasm enough to comit and phone Steve
spends over 16k in supplies and equipment dealing with stuff much worse than asbestos and arsenic just to bounce a BB in a tube
THIS is why this channel is the best
It's only dangerous if you lick it if you can keep things out of your mouth you're good
@@Brett-yq7pj is this like engagement bait or something?
@@Brett-yq7pj did you watch the video at all?
@@snozzmcberry2366what? Calm down liberal.
@@queentianamarieno, small sarcastic fact.
The quintessential cornerstone of a NileRed video is buying an overly expensive and complicated piece of equipment specifically to complete the project at hand.
Or, on the flip side, using pool-grade chemicals. Well, not this time.
I mean... do that enough times, and you can make anything you want. It's the chemistry/metallurgy equivalent of Adam Savage's workshop.
He must be able to afford it, and I’m happy for him, but also just… goddamnit, man…
How else would you justify buying niche equipment as a business expense?!
tax deductible
29:40 Your electrode touched the molten metal contaminating the rod. I'm a tig welder, this stuff happens all the time. The puff of smoke, the sooty ash where it happened, the arc flutter, the distinct green hue around the arc. Seen it more times than I can count. It was the rod making contact with the metal, no doubt about it.
45:05 I also notice you didn't clean the electrode after. That's why the arc is green and is pulling to the left slightly.
Makes sense
Woah
I'm not as knowledgeable as you about welding but do you think he had a hard time seeing the electrode distance from viewing it with a camera and not a welding visor?
How am i learning this from a dude named moelester
@@Frostbite.. Because he molests metals into their proper form.
It’s great seeing this channel. I’m an organic chemist (worked in industry for 25+ years), but I was once a clandestine chemist (I do not recommend unless you like getting your door kicked in early in the morning), and seeing a combination of his curiosity and skill is very satisfying. The style of delivery is very good too. (I wonder how many chemists watch this channel - I imagine a lot).
Interesting. There is a story there (and in your channel name) but it _seems_ you are a reformed character now. I remember a fellow student (chemist) who lost his eyebrows while at school. Kept his eyesight fortunately.
The escalating cost of machines Nile buys each video to use on one single thing is the funniest part of these videos imo
shows his dedication to not go the cheap route but go full in once he set his mind on it.
NileRed 2026: I broke down and bought this super custom, doomsday looking device. All these tubes and lines do things that I'll explain later in the video. It only set me back $538,284. Thank you to all my Patreons and RUclips Members, whom without you I couldn't do this project! Now then, I will begin creating my own gold nuggets from just these simple chemicals! xD
Lol I was wondering what contraption he gets this time
The good news is this arc melter should prove useful for a lot of other projects. If nothing else, it would make it super easy to make small samples of just about any hard to find metal alloy he could ever want.
But at least they CAN be reused, what a great way to fund a fully stocked production lab
@NileRed when I got to graduate school, there had been a terrible accident with an arc melter. The failure was the pressure relief valve on the chamber. Argon gas was heated inside the chamber, and without a functioning relief valve, the pressure increased to the point that the glass viewport window exploded, throwing glass splinters into the head of the person who was using the equipment. Please make sure your system has a double, redundant, pressure relief valve. And thanks for the amazing content.
Ouch. What happened to that person?
@@TigerGreenedead
@@pineablesodaand who are you?
@@arfaansharief5365 the glass
@@arfaansharief5365dead
NileRed: Berylium is dangerous and can be fatal
Also NileRed: MAYBE wear a mask
Ok but did
_Safety isn't my duty to uphold_
Reposting my top level comment as a reply here just to try to ensure he sees it - I work with beryllium, lead, large amounts of tritium, and uranium contaminated materials, with ultrahigh power invisible ultraviolet lasers (terawatts), and with highly radioactive neutron-activated structural materials. The beryllium scares me the most, and nothing else is even close. This video is terrifying. I know he was trying to be safe, and there are some good prudent precautions here, but we are talking about a metal that is toxic at NANOGRAM quantities per cubic meter here. This is the mass of a single grain of pollen in a volume of air the size of a washing machine. It is FANTASTICALLY toxic material approaching plutonium levels of toxicity. He needs to obtain some swipe sampler papers and contact a testing company to send random surface swipes to from around his lab. There are some berylliosis induced lung cancer cases where the exposure levels were so low they couldn't even be measured with certainty. It is not worth taking the slightest chance with your health when dealing with this substance. It is absolutely no joke.
💀
I work at the only place where we make pure berrilium in the US and most of the world actually. We wear hepa filtered helmets. Like 1400 bucks a helmet. Super safe but we got to make sure we don't get it on us because that's how you get exposed
I'm a grad student in the last year of my physics PhD working in a condensed matter physics research lab. In my undergrad, I spent 3 years working in a lab that primarily used an arc furnace for sample synthesis. Watching you go through all the different steps of madness and despair that I did when I was learning to use the system brings back memories. I'm really impressed you managed to get such good results by teaching yourself! That said, watching your video I saw there are still a few mistakes, things like not grinding the arc tip to the right shape, not moving the arc correctly, not arcing for long enough, etc. I know the project is done, but I imagine you'd want to keep using the system in the future, I'd be happy to share some tips, tricks, and stories if you're interested! Through my work I also know about all sorts of different kinds of materials you can grow with this arc system, things like high entropy alloys and some pretty neat quantum materials.
I know RUclips comments are... not a reliable source of information, so I also sent you an email with some proof that I am who I say I am. Looking forwards to seeing what else you do with the arc furnace!
Hi, I have a question,
do you have any idea what purpose would this metallic glass actually be of use in real world application
@@CA97587 a trampoline duhhh!
A Joe Bloggs query: Does the arc tip itself donate (unwanted) material to the mixture? Also, don't heavy copper wells cool the objective prematurely?
Coming from somebody who is not a PHD in anything but has used a TIG (Tungsten Inert Gas) Welder, I will agree with you about grinding the tip of the tungsten. There are different angles to grind the tungsten at which vastly affect the arc and how it will melt different metals.
For Americans and elsewhere...
Joe Bloggs = to-
John Doe or
Joe Blow with
Jo Bloggs = to
Jane Doe.
Also from the UK
A. N. Other for "Any" gender.
(See what I did there not saying "either" gender to be politically correct... I'm so goddamn woke).
Signed...
John *Q. Public
╚═ಠₒಠ═╝
**Q. Is a placeholder like
John Q. Doe
It doesn't stand for queer as has been suggested.
Am I the only one who think Nile can revisit purple gold project with this setup? This would be perfect for that project.
YES!!!
I would love that! If anything just for the fact that that was somehow my favourite video of his.
How about purple gold grills
He might redefine purple gold standards
That's an awesome idea@@ikekennedy9700
"i still dont know why they dont make it today"
*2 minutes later*
"cause scars in your lungs-"
fr
The average chemical company does much worse right next to residential neighborhoods in rural states, so idk
Any silica based rocks can do that haha probably the stones in your driveway will do that to you.
@@jerbear1204nah you have no idea how toxic beryllium is. Like don’t get me wrong I’m not saying companies don’t do that, I’m just saying compared to beryllium, it’s not even close.
Most x ray tubes are made with beryllium windows so its not because working with beryllium is dangerous. I worked in xray tube production and as long as you're careful the risks are pretty minimal.
Honestly as cool as the metallic glass is, I'd be happy to just have a perfectly-round disc of the iron or titanium. There's just something satisfying about how clean and perfect it is compared to a chunk of raw unfinished metal that really pleases my acoustism. I'm also fond of brass and bronze, would love to have a disc made of something like that.
Love to see this video on metallic glasses, the materials that I did my PhD on and even more happy to see that the papers Nile highlighted in the video are from my PhD advisor, his PhD advisor, my postdoctoral advisor and other collaborators. It is not common for youtubers to delve so deep into materials science, especially into advanced metallic alloys such as Metallic Glasses.
The amorphous nature of MGs is what gives them that bouncy nature. Metallic glasses have a high coefficient of restitution that causes the ball to bounce.
Btw, you don't need toxic metals like Beryllium or expensive metals like palladium to make these in large sizes. You can make them with much cheaper, non-toxic metals like copper, aluminum, zirconium like what I invented during my PhD. I have 2 worlds records for the biggest copper & Hafnium based metallic glasses ever produced.
We've produced these in the size of the steel cylinders Nile was using in the video (in both diameter & height) in my lab so you can imagine how big we can make them. MGs were invented by my academic great grandfather in the 50's but we only started making them in large sizes 90's onwards. The metallic glasses I invented have been the most recent major advancement in this area.
There were a few things Nile could’ve done better to make better disk samples such as used ultra-high purity Argon, slowly increased the arc power rather than expose the arc to all metals at once; let the low melting temp elements melt and combine first before the high temperature ones, cleaning the copper mold and crucible after every run to prevent contamination etc.
The thing Nile mentioned about the metallic glass not being safe to grind and polish because of beryllium is not true. Once the beryllium has been absorbed into the metal matrix, it is very safe. I literally produced thousands of these metallic glasses in my lab during my PhD, and some in very big sizes and they are all safe. For anyone trying to get their hands on these including Nile, the best way is to reach out to universities, labs, some small companies and people working on metallic glasses. They’d be happy to set you up with some samples or at least tell you the best way to produce them although I have to give it to Nile, he is 75-80% there.
Also, you don’t need that much of Titanium for gettering. 5-6 pellets are enough.
bro casually drops recipe for non lethal MGs "why not use the ones I invented" 😱
BRO
so it turns out, he didn't have to work with beryllium after all? 😭
I hope he sees this!!
It's fascinating to see how your work on metallic glasses (MGs) is being highlighted in public forums! As an electrical engineer, I'm particularly intrigued by the potential applications of MGs in our field, especially given their unique properties like high strength and elasticity. Seeing the developments from your PhD and collaborations with other leading experts, it's clear these materials have a lot to offer. I was wondering about a few aspects: From your experience, how do metallic glasses hold up under long-term stress or repeated thermal cycling? Are there specific applications where their durability has outperformed conventional materials?
Silicon transistors face challenges with thermal stability at high temperatures, leading to performance degradation. Could the amorphous structure of metallic glasses provide better thermal stability and potentially enhance the reliability of transistors in high-temperature environments?
In transistor development, the dielectric properties of materials are crucial. Have there been investigations into the dielectric behavior of metallic glasses? Could they potentially serve as effective gate dielectrics or insulating layers in MOSFET designs?
OMG this is metalic glass. My thesis theme.
I have a few comments.
1) The main part is in cooling. The way of heating is actually mostly irrelevant
2) Each metal in alloy actually has its function in either achieving eutectic system, or controlling the diffusion field around potential crystalisation points, that can spoil the result
3) I believe some inconsistency you got ties to the fact the process is very sensitive to specific kinetic curves. This means the plot of temperature over time must be exactly the same to achive the same results
4) Mechanical treatment changes the midrange structures of the AMA. This can be exploited to create bigger chunks, but also it probably means that you have turned the upper layers of your disc into usual metal alloy by grinding it.
5) To check that what you have got is really a glass - you can try multiple experiments, it is not just about bouncieness, there are a lot of properties that are different for amorphous states. The simple one is probably exposing to fire - not the plasma from wielder, just usual fire. It usually has very low temperature at which it transforms into crystal, releasing a lot of free-volume. I would try to use a lighter on cut off chunks to see whether they'll start to cover in cracks immediately (you may see somewhat leaf-like structures on the surface just from a little of heat).
6) I've mostly worked with stripes, using spinnings and splatters, but I read some studies on volumetric samples, and saw a similar disk. It was created in a way more complex setup, with a more finicky slow cooling technique. It requires the process of monitoring the volume of plate for subcritical size crystals, and removing them physically during the cooling. The initial formula has to account for the loss of the material that will get crystallised and removed. It is way harder, but it gives you more traditional metallurgy control over heat curve, and it is possible to grow a disk of this size with such a process, while esuring it has a flat glassy surface (no post-processing).
Also 7) try to use FeAl 1:1 based alloys with low quantity admixtures. You can avoid much more toxic metals like beryllium.
You massive nerd... I love you massively ❤
As far as I understood, he only sanded the face that was glued down to the base.
@@acoral1035just FYI, I love you. I had no idea of "metallic glass" before today to speak of, and now I know quite a few things. A day when I learn something new is a day well spent ❤
wow!
Me: this beryllium doesn't sound too scary
NileRed: I was scared of this beryllium
Me: beryllium is terrifying, and I now have to make sure I'm never near it for the rest of my life.
banana
if nile is scared of it its safe to assume that its something that will kill you just by thinking of it
The tiniest bit of it in the air (nanometer scale) is lethal. Even without dying, slight contamination can lead to lung cancer and an early death.
This video is scarier then some horror movies, I worry for this man.
@@Entropy67 it's important to remember that you're only susceptible to berylliosis if you have a specific genetic trait that is fairly rare. It's not lethal for everyone, only those with that specific mutation.
If Nile is afraid, you know something's up
This guy just spent more than 14k dollars to make a quality video like this. You deserve all the love and support dude.
Hi, a PhD material physics student doing MG-related research here. Metallic glasses are somehow very rarely talked about in yt educator space, so Im happy to see this and great job! I really think you should've tried some of those non-toxic bulk metallic glasses, you can definitely make some of these with this setup and the bounciness shouldn't be that much different in principle, since the energy normally escapes through formation of defects, but for MGs there aren't any defect forming mechanisms that are present in crystals - no vacancies, no lines, no stacking etc. So i am actually curious how different other MGs would be.
"Hi, I'm a PhD student in the EXACT niche and obscure topic that the video is on - here's a bunch of tips from an expert" -
Are they really "rare and new material?" I remember MG mentioned a couple of times 5 years ago when I was doing my undergrad, and while we only talked about basic industrial production and differences in molecular structure between normal crystal lattice and glass, I never felt like I was presented any new information. More like... Obscure info 😅
New - not necessarily. Rare? Kinda. Obscure? Very much.
As far as internet tells me, producing an ingot of metallic glass is something that started to be comfortably possible in the 90s - so around 30 years old material science
Maybe for a Nile blue video?
New Nilered video just dropped, no more rethinking my major for a month
My farts are better than NileRed’s farts 💨
join a cool research lab at your uni, then chemistry becomes more fun
@@p-__can I smell it
@@Goose-ib2ti yeah but how
@@mademoisellemorte6066 it's pretty obvious bro. All you have to do is impress the chemistry gods by eating a wafer of beryllium.
"my alibaba nuclear reactor is finicky and poorly made" Might be quote of the year
wait was that a direct quote or was it just the part about the mould being finicky and poorly made?
So anyway, I started blasting.
This is some cool metallurgy work. At some point I'd love to see a video where you refine some bauxite into aluminum. Since it's such an involved process.
Took me a hot second to figure out that "atomic trampoline" did not, in fact, mean a trampoline that launches things into the air using the power of a nuclear weapon...
Operation plumbob be like
That... Sounds amazing 😅
I thought it was a ting that could make a single atom bounce up and down.
Like that manhole cover that got launched into space that one time?
@@Streetcleanergaming that would be operation plumbob
What makes Nigel a mad scientiest is not so much the capability but the fact that almost *every* project of his starts with "If the world will not provide, I will create". The man is raw desire, ambition, and skill.
Mad scientist, with stress on "scientist". The closest we'll ever get to a real Dr. Darling.
@@GobrinDesuka He added 10% pleasure and 50% pain tho
@@TheAnonymousFTWthat's twice as much pleasure as the recipe called for, this trampoline gonna be wild
@@stillcantthinkofaname4800 yea it's supposed to be 10% luck, 20% skill, 5% pleasure and 50% pain and 15% concentrated power of will (by weight, not volume)
If it's an object, made of chemicals, Nigel can create it.
54:07 "for now though I think I'm done working with nasty and toxic beryllium, and I'm gonna try focusing on some even more dangerous projects" 💀
“Like making nuclear powered glow toys”
1:52 "I still don't really know why nobody makes them anymore" 😂
I read this as he said that 😂
"foreshadowing" ☠
Uhh, I'd say less dangerous
Beryllium is insane
That final result made me crack a big smile. After all that it was so satisfying to see, can't imagine how he felt after all this work.
I read "atomic" and thought, this was the day lol
I was genuinely concerned for a moment lmao
My time has come 😔
My farts are better than NileRed’s farts 💨
He finally made the device
@@Psychedelicdoughnut5 RUclipsrs who entered their villain arc
Grand Illusions being the sole holder of an atomic trampoline was a plot twist I wasn't ready for! Love Tim and his videos.
that old man probably has the arc of the covenant in one of those suitcases as well
@@theshuman100 "hello there, today we have a trinket I found in a desert sometime in 1980s...
it's quite pretty, with like...all these little golden statues n stuff...
also found this old shiny gold cup thing, but it isn't rlly that interesting..."
I would not be surprised if he possesses Excalibur, he is a worthy brit after all
@@Rieny880 Damn, I read that in his voice. Good job.
@@OptimusSubPr1me ty, quite surprising as I myself haven't heard him in agessssasssss
Man's posting after 5 months and dropping us with a trampoline
Truly a NileRED moment
My farts are better than NileRed’s farts 💨
"Truly a NileRED moment" only brings LazyMatman in my mind.
Can we all pls take a sec to thank all of the Patrons who allow us poor, broke souls to watch for free. TY all ❤
He left us on red
@@josemiguel5754 Glad to know the Chad gamers like us watch the same kinds of people
Idk if this would help or not but sharpening the electrode provides a more defined and deeper penetrating arc using less heat to deliver the same results. Be sure to grind it to a point with the grain of the grind running towards the point instead of in a circle. This is done with tungsten electrodes when TIG welding. This looks extremely similar in concept
Having worked in the aerospace industry we did grind beryllium using oil as it would not evaporate leaving dust. I also use electron guns in a vacuum chamber with various chemicals, with metal materials you want to heat slowly as some materials have trapped air pockets. Blasting at full power I would talk you out of. Slow and steady. When you have different melting points the lower ones will stabilize the environment. I liked that you placed your electrode at an angle causing the pool to rotate.
Would the air pockets be as much of an issue with the extremely high purity metal samples he has?
@@platinumsky845 The purity of sample is just how much extra stuff is in it, like specific contaminants. No matter what you are most likely going to have small, microscopic air bubbles trapped in the metal as it cools and solidifies, specifically from outgassing. I don't work with welding, but I've done a LOT of stuff with solder over the last 10 years with electronics repair, and a very common issue with that is planar microvoids. These are literally microscopic air cavities that form in solder as it solidifies, resulting in a weaker joint that can easily be broken from mechanical stress. These voids usually form as a result of flux and outgassing. Regardless of alloy composition, I have a feeling this is something that would be an issue with any kind of molten metal. I have a feeling eutectic alloys would especially have this issue. To handle outgassing you'd wanna keep the metal molten long enough to let the air bubbles escape.
No matter the purity of sample, it still had to be melted and solidified in a mold at some point in the process to turn it into a sample. Even if done in a complete oxygen-free environment, it is entirely possible some of the shielding gas used could get trapped in the molten metal, and this gas would come back out (possibly violently) when the metal is melted. Basically, the purity of sample does not dictate whether or not it will have air bubbles.
I don't know if Nile reads comments but if he happens to see this, I bet something that would greatly improve the quality of all cast metal projects would be to sand the surface of the molds he is using. I was surprised he did not do this. Sanding and polishing the surface of the mold would assuredly result in a much cleaner looking surface finish for your casted metal. A little wet sanding under the fume hood for the finished product would probably clean them up just fine.
Why don't you have a channel? I would subscribe immediately.
His deadpan facial expressions and serious demeanor, coupled with the general goofiness of his look and the chaotic nature of what he does, is god tier, level 100 entertainment.
He really does come off innocent and nonchalant for what an absolute mad man he really is 💪
s so deadpan im dead
Yep, the deadpan makes me laugh a lot throughout the video.
I NEED a piece of that stuff to glue to the face of my #1 golf driver.
Think about the controversy during the weekly golf league competition. Some of them will lose their minds when this old man hits a ball 340 yards. There will be hearings and meeting, and rulings and much angst over an unfair advantage.
The entertainment alone will be worth the effort.
I applaud your perseverance and effort. Really well done.
They actually made drivers out of this stuff! Sadly not anymore because it shattered after a few uses.
340 yards is light work if your swing is correct.
I absolutely love your comment Mr. Parsons. Your energy is amazing
This is fucking amazing, good lord the coughing from my laugh was worth it to picture the birth of a new rule in golfing about no atomic clubs.
Liquid metal driver....was amazing....still have one...
It would be interesting to make a metallic glass ball, it would probably bounce more than the ball bearing ones
14:11 The face of a man who just spent $14,000 to make some bouncy metal.
My farts are better than NileRed’s farts 💨
The most expensive part of this kit was probably the chiller. $14,000 seems so overpriced. It probably shouldn't have cost more than $1,200. :(
@@crispy_338You know he’s melting Beryllium right? And the metals he’s melting can’t be exposed to oxygen. That smart guys decisions seem strange to you because you’re ignorant on the topic.
Looks sweet, and probably alot more lucrative than being the greatest lion armorer without a very good forge these days? Or make an outer holographic advanced spaceship shell of metallic glass or at least one component, with thermodynamic transfusion probably?
@@keeferChiefer Filling a vacuum chamber full of argon really doesn't require extreme cutting-edge technology. Everything you need here could be purchased for a fraction of the cost. Like I stated, the most expensive parts are probably the chiller and the machined copper parts. 😟
I only watched the first minute and decided to do some research and make my own. It’s the perfect project to keep me busy while my vent hood is being repaired. Had to take a break though my lungs are hurting for some reason
☠☠☠☠
Hilarious 😂 this comment needs more love 😂
😂😂😂. I hope this comment gets thousands of likes. You made my day☠️
Probably just a cold.
😂😂😂
I wonder if it would retain other glass features. The most lethal Prince Rupert’s drop?
I used to love your channel when I was a kid cool to see you guys are still at it
Oh, that's an interesting idea! I don't know if it's possible to make one though.
Bouncing the ball between the two of the discs would be interesting in slow mo.
@@NileRed but imagine the collab potential if you could make it happen though? you make the bead, and they film the explode!! It would take away your excuse to buy $100k+ cameras since they have enough to spare, not sure if that's a demotivation? 😅
Calm down Satan...
My dad is gonna LOVE your channel. He builds gadgets like those digital thingys and also has chemicals. He also fixes things and sells things
> I have no idea why this isn't being made anymore.
later
> so, this is basically the metal equivalent of asbestos
Its definaly worse
@@Bruno_Noobador Yes, actually much much worse.
Till I got to the beryllium part I was wondering how the heck an amorphous alloy can can cause asbestos-like mechanical damage. Beryllium isn't that uncommon in industry though, it shows up in specialty alloys and ceramics, I suspect this alloy isn't widely available in discs just because it's hard to work and there's not much industrial use for it, as far as I know most amorphous metal is in ribbon form and used for things like transformer cores.
Dude, he said this was only one alloy, he could have chosen another, he was talking about metallic glass, not this alloy in particular
Beryllium is somewhat safe so long as it’s a solid and there’s no dust. The dust/vapor is the problem. You can handle blocks of beryllium without much precaution (so long as you don’t have any open wounds)
"It was a lot tricker than I expected" - NileRed, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024...
I agree very strongly
Soon 2025, I wonder how far into 2025 he’ll say it first.
"With that being said..."
My grandfather passed in the mid-nineties from Berylliosis after many years working in a beryllium ore factory. Hell...he wasn't even a laborer...he was either President or CEO for the factory (I can't remember)...but he always made the time daily to walk through the factory and at least greet each of his employees. I was born in '91, and he was on full-time oxygen since before I was even born. Beryllium is no joke!
He should wear a mask leaving his office.
@@tolep Well, seeing as he hasn't taken a breath in almost 30 years, I can't imagine a mask is gonna do much to help him at this point. Lol. (Made for an entertaining mental image, though! 😂)
@@tolepI’ll make sure to tell him, thanks for the advice
Thank you for sharing this
your lab is literally my dream to work in, youre my inspiration
Honestly, I think the most important thing Nile contributes in each video is his detailing of the manufacturing process for these rare or strange materials and chemicals he makes. And this is just the public, youtube version of it! it's amazing how he can get such vauge instructions scattered in pieces across the internet, and work on it for months and reliably create what he wanted. A good example apart from this video is the purple gold!
Agreed aggregating this information on one channel is crazy useful, and it's really nice to see the learning process and not just, "Do X,Y,Z > > Success". I'll obviously never do the majority of what he is doing, but a lot of the information and logical steps are transferable to other areas. Seeing failures and their solutions is really great.
I've thought that before while watching Nile. If you were trying to make the same things; watching these videos first would save you so much time and headache
That's because Nile got this from his father His father flew a Plane on Nine eleven.. Without checking all the details, He wouldn't have been successful.
@@doctorpanigrahi9975 - What a vile thing to say. Have you no shame?
@@wickedcabinboy No.
“I really wanted to buy one”
“Impossible to buy”
“Not beings able to buy one made me want one even more”
“Im gonna have to make one myself”
Its the purple gold situation all over again…
You can't escape the purple gold
Perhaps he can now re-do making the gold on his new equipment
😂😂
History repeated itself. Biggest plot twists ever. Better than the entire FNAF lore combined. 💀💀💀
"Equipment is going to handle deadly fumes"
"Buys it at common online shop"
I feel Nile played the guy who goes to the dollar store to buy condoms... gladly he didn't roll an 1
35:25 Nigel, please don't make fun of iron. It really is trying its best. You know how soft it is, your words might hurt it.
It's tragic really, all other elements aspire to be iron but it just doesn't listen.
He’s hurting it’s Fe-elings
Of course tungsten is saying this
@@Yeetus47well that’s IRONic
name checks out
Here’s an idea with commercial potential in defence industry for you to try:
About a year ago I came to the idea of a “trampoline” kind of armour, which by my calculations should be 4-5 lighter than an ARMOX 600T armour plate.
The first approach to creating a trampoline armour plate should be based on UHMPE or kevlar sheets strung across rubber harness on some metal frame. (This variant has little to do with chemistry, so it’s not interesting for your channel probably.)
But the second approach should be “elastic metallic”: you take 200-300 m of spring, stack it together (randomly directed) by layers and interconnect individual springs in many joints by welding or other method, so that a plate 5-10 cm thick is formed, and finally you just harden and quench the plate.
Me: That's so cool, why is this not a popular toy already
NileRed: Introduces Beryllium
Me: Oh
I hate to point this out after seeing everything he had to do to make this happen... but a ball bearing will bounce like this on an anvil
This material is extremely interesting though, I wonder if he could make metallic glass ball bearings to bounce those on the atomic trampoline
@@LukeA_55 yeah but anvils arent exactly small xd
@@AJ--212 true, I believe its mostly due to the hardened surface but the larger mass plays a big roll in rebounding the energy as well.
Would be cool to see how it compares to a similarly sized anvil
@@LukeA_55if not for the extreme fragility, I would like to see what MG would do as a layer on an andvil.
A few ideas for next time:
1. Instead of cleaning the air inside the tank with low pressure, try it with high pressure. Pushing more argon in, then evacuating until about athmospheric pressure.
This way you avoid sucking air in through tiny leaks.
2. Since beryllium has a melting point much lower than the arc used, I suspect you're evaporating it. If you lay it under a layer of other stuff to shield it from the direct arc, it might not explode like this.
3. It looks like you're contaminating your material with the tungsten electrode. Try holding more distance between the electrode and the puddle. You can also sharpen the electrode to have a more focused arc. Look into tig welding electrodes for how it should look. If it's sharp, you'll also easily detect if you lost some part of the electrode.
4. Grinding is not a huge problem at all, if done wet. Grind on a diamond stone, submerged in oil. The oil will catch all residue and avoid any airborne dust. You can get a much nicer surface like this.
If you spent that much time on this project, why not look into other alloys which contain less problematic elements? There must be research on bounciness of amorphous metals, right?
great comment
Your comment is so under rated. I thought the same thing about the tungsten electrode. It has been many years since my welding days, but I thought I remember the tig electrodes looking slightly different.
Great ideas.
"Be" in this episode is a paid actor. He was casted to bring the thrill factor. The goal would never be a safe one but a barely safe enough one.
@@JohnWilliams-gy5yc What a great role model
Definitely makes for a way more entertaining video
(I'm being sarcastic)
I suspect that if a company settled on that alloy to sell commercially, probably there wasn't a better one. Why would a company choose to work with beryllium?
8:42 I had the absolute privilege of taking a materials science course from the lead author on this paper like 7 or 8 years ago. He would just casually hand us rods of experimental metallic glass alloys (containing Pd, Au, Be, etc) and have us break them using test equipment. They were insanely strong... good times
My farts are better than NileRed’s farts 💨
Don't touch or breath it
@@p-__you are more valuable than many rubies
were they tough or like, strong in traction?
@@crackedemerald4930 they were tough like deeeeez nuts
That's a super cool project. I like how you take us through the whole process with its ups and downs. That's real science.
One interesting tidbit I learned at a conference: Beryllium is the metal of choice for telescope mirrors because it has an extremely low density compared to its stiffness (high specific stiffness). Telescope mirrors are often polished to fractions of a wavelength of their desired shape (tens of nanometers)! Because the tolerances are so tight, the deformation of the mirror sagging under its own weight starts to become important, and since telescopes can be aimed in any direction, the way that the mirror sags can't be predicted and accounted for. Beryllium sags less because its stiff while also weighing less.
I also heard that beryllium mirrors are extremely expensive, and hearing about the safety risks of working with it, I now see why!
My grandpa was a machinist and did a fair amount of work on things containing beryllium mostly beryllium copper. He talked about how they would machine it grind it and polish it safely without releasing the dust into the air. They would preform all operations cutting with as much oil as they could get on it taking really small cuts Ideally submergeing the part in oil. Then to gring or polish it was all done submerged in oil. Then the oil was safely disguarded after machining was complete. I would do more looking into it if you wanted to try and polish the discs to make them more perfect. I know my grandpa had a special box that would lock onto his milling machine that would allow him to fill it with oil then machine in there. The box was complete with its own keyway in the bottom to secure the piece being worked on.
Great video with lots of great information very informative.
Don't expect Nile to look at your comment this early, give him some time, like 2 months at best. Anyway what you say is pretty interesting, love it.
interesting, sounds cool
@adamhartfiel5781 thats exactly what i was thinking,equipment for machining while submerged in liquid is cheap compared to what he got in there
24:02 "and I handled the beryllium as carefully as possible"
*Smacks the bag on the surface*
This was my thought too. There would obviously be microscopic particles of dust in that bag already and he just aggrevated them. Open that bag and you potentially have floating particles still.
I'd probably let that bag sit for a good hour before even opening it, then I'd do that extremely carefully. Don't mess about when it comes to severe respiratory risks.
@@ArmourGX he's opening the bag in a fume hood, virtually 0 risk, especially with how low he was keeping the glass door.
@@cornbits but now there's unnecessary Be dust contaminating the surfaces inside the hood, which can be transferred to anything that comes out of the hood, and which can be kicked up again the next time he opens the sash, all of which will increase his cumulative exposure
@@timsmith1579 tell me you've never worked with a fume hood in a lab environment without telling me you've never worked with a fume hood in a lab environment. There are clean up procedures for a reason, down to how to properly remove you gloves after handling danger chemical or Bio hazard. You assume everything you touched is contanminated and trat it appropriately. Even if he didn't handle the bag in that manner I'm sure he would still clean it as though it were contaminated.
@@cornbits i have more experience than you imagine and i hope your faith in nilered's diligence is warranted; developing and enacting appropriate procedures for unusual hazards like Be requires careful thought.
Metal Glass developed at Cal Tech was eventually injection molded. When you evacuate your chamber you fill it with Argon until the pressure is neutral. Maybe try pressurizing the chamber with the Argon. Your disks have the characteristics of very low injection pressure. With higher pressure differential the disks would conform to the polished surfaces of the mold better. Enjoyed the video of your journey. Well Done!
I won't lie, I genuinely popped off when I saw all five of them together. This was an incredible journey to witness, even in video form, and I'm really happy you got the level of satisfaction you wanted out of this. I genuinely feel like you could write a paper about each and every one of your videos, and this one would probably be one of the coolest.
50:17 i love that he has a hydraulic press with perfect alignment and a machined top but still glues it down using his hand
I love how he doesn't just show us the steps and end result, but also narrates through his thought processes and failures.
Failures are kind of more interesting as it is from those we learn (how to) eventually break through.
what does give you beryllium poisoning, makes you stronger
He has to, otherwise the video won’t be long enough for the extra ad revenue.
@@Thee_Sinner lol that's really why you think he makes the videos this long? Why he adds extra content? 🤦🏻♀️
@@westie430 why else would he spend 2 minutes just unboxing and explaining where certain wires get plugged in? That adds nothing to the video except time.
23:59 The fact that beryllium, which can be deadly if its dust ever gets breathed in, is shipped in an easily rippable and openable plastic baggie is just wild to me 😂
Luckilly, most people with the mind to do something bad with it are too dumb to not injure themselves.
"We also have some Hydrazine that we've contained inside these handy little Capri Sun cartons!"
Its not nearly as dangerous as he makes it out to be in this video.
@@PlexiumGames- Your source?
yeah, imagine if a psychopath grinds the beryllium into a vent and then gets everyone hospitalised in a hotel
I’m not at all surprised you had to follow specific protocols to make the mold work. Just my experience casting lead bullets taught me how all that works. You need to have a specific lead temperature a specific temperature and the mold and definitely have the right pouring speed.
I honestly love how this guy kept his word to Steve and made a bunch of these and then sent him one. what a champion
theres something poetic about the 5th one being made out of the broken bits of the rest and ending up being the best one
I think its also mixed the best out of all of them
Four years ago, i found your videos during covid. Now, I just started my first week going into college for chemical engineering. You were the person who made me realize my love for chemistry, thank you!
My farts are better than NileRed’s farts 💨
Congrats!! So glad now you study chemistry, which you really wanted to deal with. Stay healthy and happy in your college life...!
have you watched chemical safety board videos? i bet you'll like them! i'm a chemist but enjoy chemical engineering stuff
me too actually, because of the cotton to candy vid
@@p-__bot
When i look at this, i can already imagine how insane this experiment is. Nile work so hard on those experiment so i think we should like and subscribe!
14k for a machine that will allow you to melt metals extremely quickly, safely, and in a completely inert environment free of oxygen is actually a really good investment for a chemistry channel with 7m followers. I’m no chemist, but melting metals seems quite cumbersome with constant oxidation. Glad you didn’t regret the purchase.
That's $0.005 per follower. Not much when you compare it that way.
@@SimonClarkstone he’s actually used the machine again since the metal glass video, it’s actually probably the most efficient and safest way to melt anything really. It’s instant and vacuum safe so no danger 🤷🏼♂️
53:44 OR EAT IT...
Thought i was the only one thinking about what it would feel like if i bite it.
@@mofizcraft
Pain. Agony. Hatred burning through the cavernous deeps.
So no licking either?
No you can eat it
Just don't eat it
He would've mentioned eating it if it was not good
nile has that voice where he can say that he got a box of puppies for free, and then say his grandma died in the same sentence, and sound perfectly normal
I wish i had one of them
This was a really cool project! I really admire your perseverance nile
I worked with some of this exact equipment as a manufacturing technician. Quick tip I can give you for the vacuum lines. When it comes to the grease, less is more. You basically want to just get your o-rings moist and have no excess grease, otherwise you're likely to get air leaks that you can't see but your instrumentation can sure tell is there.
Having spent 10 years of my career in metallurgical and material sciences, I knew that this was going to be a very tricky project. It was apparent to me that after you had cast the disk, the vast majority of the issues you had related to the condition of the surface. If you had a laboratory bench grinder, it’s simple to polish these very flat. Also, if you were to lap them using a lapping machine, you would not need to use the glue and could have a better surface contact to the base material. I think you could easily double the bouncing time using this method. But I know you you’re not going to do that because that wasn’t the point of the video. Maybe it will be a good reference for you if you ever try to do another project like this. Glad you pushed through the issues and finish the project. Well done!
🎉
Didn’t he avoid grinding because of the Be dust?
@@hx5525Yep, but he did use sandpaper anyways for the glue at the end.
@@hx5525 laboratory bench grinder is essentially a lapping machine that runs under a constant stream of water. There’s no dust. Most of the time, depending on the kind of material you’re grinding, the waste water can run directly into the sewer because it is nontoxic. In the US, specifically Texeas, the alloys he created would probably fall into that category
@@nikkiofthevalley laboratory bench grinder can get much more flat. I suspect (but I’m not certain) a significant amount of mechanical energy is lost using the gluing method. Having two meeting services that are nearly perfectly flat lose much less energy.
39:36 that "an ugly piece of crap" was super agressive Nigel. Bullying the shit out of the poor alloy 😂😭
He didn’t deserve that
Oh christ
@@R3TR0R4V3 Please don't take Jesus Christ's name in vain
@@ferdinandionita1216 Christ on a stick, you bible-thumpers take that shit too far sometimes. You follow whatever teachings you want buddy, just don't hold completely random strangers accountable to them, unless you like disappointment.
Jesus christ @@ferdinandionita1216
I would suggest flowing the argon when melting those oxide forming metals. Vaporization of the native oxides are contaminating the atmosphere. Somthing around 20-30CFH, possibly higher.
The black plume and other melt defects are from dipping tungsten in the melt. Best to stop and clean electrode if that happens.
Some type of closed loop thermal control on the mold would let you run it hotter and not have to flip the sample, and potentially aid in the casting process.
Thanks for the interesting content, keep having fun.
Excellent video!! I have a few follow-up recommendations:
1.) Use the vacuum pump to remove the air from the bouncy tube and see how much longer it takes to decay to a stop.
2.) If the bounce is caused by preventing defects from forming in the glass, they can still form in the ball bearing. I'd like to see a metallic glass ball dropped onto the flat metallic glass disk under a vacuum. Would be a great way to utilize a non-toxic metallic glass that you could then grind in a ball mill into a sphere. Alternately, use a ceramic ball from a ceramic ball bearing and see what you get.
3.) mount a sound coil onto the bottom of the disk assembly, and tune the frequency. In a vacuum, you may be able to get the ball to bounce perpetually.
4.) If you do get around to making a non-toxic disk, there are simple ways to polish the surface to a flatness below 2 light bands. That along with careful leveling should keep the ball from bouncing side to side and touching the glass tube.
Excellent suggestions
This sounds like a smart idea
#215) Alibaba is where Harbor Freight sources the bottom 20% quality of their items 😂😂
Guy I know worked at the nuclear test site. He described some of the cameras they used for high speed (VERY high speed) filming of the "experiments", and they used a mirror in the center spinning at some ungodly RPM. Occasionally, something would be slightly off and the mirror would explode into dust.
Guess what the mirror, that occasionally turned into dust, was made of?
Beryllium.
damn
I'd certainly run away while holding my breath
Also, what's the FPS of the camera
I'm curious
@@Xnoob545 I believe it might be in the millions of FPS. There was a youtube video that talked about this but I don't remember what it was.
I mean if you already work in a nuclear test site what's a little Beryllium dust?
@@MR-qi5lc I can't remember the details, but the same guy was telling me about a beryllium contamination accident happening there (I don't think it was camera related -- maybe in the machine shop?) and how serious everything got really fast. Building shut down, decontamination, checking employees for contamination, etc. That federal contractor, at least, didn't fuck around with safety.
Another retired "experiment" guy was telling me about how he was next to a coworker who was handling plutonium in a glove box. They noticed that one of his glove layers had a cut, so they called the safety team to come deal with it... Guy I was talking to was told to stay in the far corner of room while safety did what they did -- and the coworker with the cut glove had to stand there, hands in the glove box near _plutonium_, for well more than an hour while the safety team just prepped everything for him to just move away for further decontamination.
@@MR-qi5lcpeople who work in nuclear facilities get less radiation than other people because everything is shielded so well that they are exposed to fewer cosmic rays
Watching Nile is like watching an action show. Even when he fails, you know he’s going to win at the end of the episode.
My farts are better than NileRed’s farts 💨
@@p-__ better how?
@@ritishify Sulphur content. For example, ladies "produce" much more sulphur. It's been proven, look for the paper on it ( hilarious ).
@@buka9993 hahaha sounds plausible that something like that could happen, probably has to do with hormones although ngl, I have no idea how hormones work. I'm not going to look it up, if you drop a link I'll definitely will, but thanks for the input, that's funny haha.
@@ritishify cant link on yt. They fed people pinto beans and they farted into a tube. Ladies have approx 3x more sulphur in their farts. More sulphur = stinkier fart. So ladies have much more rancid winds.
You are really one of the coolest guys out there, putting all this work, and time into your videos all while educating the viewer through your processes. I love it
My favorite thing about your videos is that you show the reality of science and make the process and its failures feel fun. You’re on the last step halfway through the video, because no matter what every project is a learning process that needs many tweaks. Keep it up Nile red
He's so tenacious. I give up anytime I hit a single hiccup.
I love how all of Nile's videos are like an anime, there's the arc of ascension, then he gets disappointed and in the end he finds a way to fix the problems
isn't that just every story?
@@hpropganda Orientation, complication, and resolution
yep
It almost makes you wonder of that's deliberate 🤔 😂
Pay attention and you will see that in EVERY RUclips video essay or long video
Berylium: Omewa shindeiru
Nileredu: Hah, I have mastered chemistry and safety. I will not fall for your tricks berylium. You can't force me to grind your gears. Also I have this safety masku, handily ready as a sensei-chemist.
Berylium: NANI?
I’ve worked with these metal molds. You need to pressurise the camber before pulling a vacuum on the mould.
The strats
Makes a lot of sense
As a welder, I panicked at 20:59 at first, went "NILE, PLEASE, YOUR WELD HOOD, YOU'RE GOING TO GO BLIND AND SUNBURN THE SH!T OUT OF YOUR FACE, WTF" but, judging by the fact that he didn't flinch when it turned on and presumably still has functioning eyes, I'm assuming there was a screen of some sort over the glass lol
seeing an hour long nile red video at night gives me the coziest feeling ever
Sus
@@Jacy-dx6dxhater
@@latenightneons_ ?
NO WAY! I never would've expected to see Grand Illusions mentioned on a Nile channel, even if it was for just a single second. Tim is a very old and interesting gentlemen from Britain that has been collecting toys and novelty items for the majority of his 82 y/o life with a great passion. His treasure trove is incredibly vast, so much so that even after a decade of regularly posting showcase videos to YT he's still pulling out stuff we've never seen every single video. I'm fairly confident that you could find all manner of things in it that could pique your curiosity.
Ya, it is such a wholesome channel and I wish more people would check it out.
pique*
I've been subscribed to Grand Illusions for a decade now, and I was amused to see him mentioned in Steve Mould's video last year. Now Nile makes a video based on Steve's. Amazing!
Atomic Trampoline with a Eulers Disc... one for the ages.
Woo😊
NileRed: I have no idea why they don't make these anymore
Also Nilered: Yeah, so... I might die making this!
“It’s perfectly safe for the consumer. As long as they don’t sand it. Or grind it. Or drop it. Or break it in any way. And you know now that I think about it pets would probably be a bad idea around it…”
@cody.vagabondthe one he chose to remake, as he explained. Was the most suitable alloy available for this project.
The computer CPU heatsink is a nerd level 9000 move. I'm sincerely impressed.
24:01 Carefully slams the bag of berryllium on the fumehood surface "I then made sure to handle it as carefully as possible"
It isn't explosive you know.
@@stargazer7644yes but it produces hella dust
@@canaconn2388 not my slamming it on a table
@@FrenkieWest32 But lightly touching it does
@@FrenkieWest32 Happy to admit up front that I've never handled something posing the kinds of hazard associated with Beryllium, and perhaps I'm being overly cautious, BUT: if there was dust already in the bag created during the shipping process, opening the bag and then dropping it even short distance seems like a decidedly careless choice. I haven't worked in a lab for some time, and maybe I'm paranoid, but this seems like a no-no given the hazards described here. Especially as, at this point, the fume cupboard door would still be open.
The seemingly exaggerated way Nile did this might indicate that the risks are actually lower than he made out, and that he was just playing with us for effect. I hope so!
51:03 it wasn’t just the glue. Cutting the nub ends allowed the disk to properly reverberate. Having the nubs allowed the vibrations to cancel themselves.
I was thinking that too about the vibration modes and damping, glad to see it wasn't just me.
Beryllium is the Devil's metal. Once I broke by accident a coated beryllium window on a soft x-ray detector, took to my feet and slammed the door behind me. The room was off limits until my employer had employed a decontamination company and they had deemed it safe.
It's you that makes the world progress, well done on setting your goals and not backing down. Excellent
31:11 I have lost count how many times I've heard Danny DeVito in my head going "So anyway, I started blasting"
38:28 as well.
How are there not more of this comment . I was expecting to see thousands of comments just saying “anyways, so I started blasting”. This is the only one I’ve found.
Man, the ability to melt stuff without oxidation is a HUGE step up. You could make all kinds of alloys with a set up like that, albeit in smaller quantities
The vacuum too should reduce air bubbles too right? Just dump a bunch of metal in a crucible and no matter how much you mix it, you'll end up with a result that looks way less impressive than this. Polish up those discs and they'll be far superior.
@ArmourGX @ArmourGX Not quite. As you saw in the video, voids can absolutely still occur as a result of the molten metal freezing at inopportune moments. Ways to mitigate that are preheating the mold, which is basically impossible with his set up, or by the trick Nile uses in the video by heating the metal as hot as possible right before and where it enters the mold.
I've never used an arc welder, but that's what I THINK made it work
I'm normally late to these videos but I have to say, 17:30 is possibly one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Glowing heat ripples travelling through seemingly transparent liquid iron, can you imagine what the Earth's ferrous core must look like?
Ferric or ferrous?
Ferocious
The adjective of iron could be IRONY (just kidding)
@@V_is_Dscombobulated persistent
This content is amazing. A happy guy explaining incredible physics and chemistry. Enjoying sharing! What more is to ask of you! It's a mad world at the moment, but your posts bring a level that too many people ignore. Thanks so much. Take care of yourself and please keep on posting.
53:18 no thanks, I don't want any Beryllium disease.
Step aside then!
If it were a metallic glass alloy that contains no beryllium and has like half the performance of the beryllium one, it would be brilliant in that it's much more feasible to mass produce commercially or as a kid's toy that has any child-proofness, knowing that this wouldn't go full on asbestos mode when you chip it. That guy who won the prize better put it in a drawer with some 10 kilograms of styrofoam to prevent it chip and only play with it in a fume hood.
Not how that works
@@謝利米 Even if you chip it, it's not that serious. Just clean it up.
53:35 its safe as long as you dont break it, sand it etc.
the reason why I love watching Nile is cause he has no problem spending days and weeks and thousands of dollars on science experiments of pure entertainment, weeks of research and over 20k dollars later and he made a metal ball bouncy, good job Nile I love it
A chemist has insane power. Imagine seeing something cool you want to buy, but there's literally no one selling it, so you make your own.
38:51 Nile casually sounding like tf2 Pyro