Fun with Gallium

[Jolly_Penguin]

Any of you played around with Gallium metal? It is a metal that melts a near room temperature. I did some basic metal work, making molds out of was. I made a copy of my housekey that worked. I made a spoon that looks almost identical to the ones I eat with. Asked my friend to stir some hot water (what I called tea) with it and it melted in her hand lol. She was freaking out Quiet a fun prank.

Found a clip of somebody doing the same thing. The metal really does feel like any other metal when it is solid and you can totally fool folks with this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dozKRaWbWqA

Gallium also undermines the structural integrity of aluminum, so smear some on a pop can and you can pull it apart like paper.

 

[beero1000]

Any of you played around with Gallium metal? It is a metal that melts a near room temperature. I did some basic metal work, making molds out of was. I made a copy of my housekey that worked. I made a spoon that looks almost identical to the ones I eat with. Asked my friend to stir some hot water (what I called tea) with it and it melted in her hand lol. She was freaking out Quiet a fun prank.

It does cool stuff to aluminum too.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

wow that's a lot of it in that baseball bat vid. I only did the pop can. Now I wanna see somebody destroy an aluminum canoe with gallium. A house with aluminum siding? bwahaha

 

[repoman]

oh man, imagine scoring an aluminum baseball bat with just enough Gallium to break when it hits a ball for Little League. Could be funny or it could blind somebody with the shards...

Luckily Gallium is hard to get.

 

[beero1000]

oh man, imagine scoring an aluminum baseball bat with just enough Gallium to break when it hits a ball for Little League. Could be funny or it could blind somebody with the shards...

Luckily Gallium is hard to get.

Hard to get? You can buy it on Amazon.

 

[James Brown]

The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements

Why did Gandhi hate iodine (I, 53)? How did radium (Ra, 88) nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation? And why is gallium (Ga, 31) the go-to element for laboratory pranksters?*

The Periodic Table is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of adventure, betrayal, and obsession. These fascinating tales follow every element on the table as they play out their parts in human history, and in the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. THE DISAPPEARING SPOON masterfully fuses science with the classic lore of invention, investigation, and discovery--from the Big Bang through the end of time.

 

[Elixir]

wow that's a lot of it in that baseball bat vid. I only did the pop can. Now I wanna see somebody destroy an aluminum canoe with gallium. A house with aluminum siding? bwahaha

Airplane?
Yikes.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

wow that's a lot of it in that baseball bat vid. I only did the pop can. Now I wanna see somebody destroy an aluminum canoe with gallium. A house with aluminum siding? bwahaha

Airplane?
Yikes.

Mercury will destroy aluminum also. That is why it's illegal to bring a mercury based thermometer aboard an airliner.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

wow that's a lot of it in that baseball bat vid. I only did the pop can. Now I wanna see somebody destroy an aluminum canoe with gallium. A house with aluminum siding? bwahaha

Airplane?
Yikes.

Yup, although at airplane temperatures it's going to be a solid and therefore not much of a threat.

 

[bilby]

Airplane?
Yikes.

Mercury will destroy aluminum also. That is why it's illegal to bring a mercury based thermometer aboard an airliner.

Yeah, Mercury is even better than Gallium at destroying Aluminium. It generates a LOT of heat, and can actually set the Aluminium on fire. And of course, it is liquid at room temperature, so it poses a much greater risk to aircraft.

 

[DolphinDynasty]

Has anybody come across the video with a science teacher showing his students that when you harden gallium into teardrop shapes he molecular changes in doing so solidify it to near steel like proportions? He tried letting them hammer at it and told the class how he even once let shop students use a sledgehammer with enough force to break the granite slate in the table without a mark on the gallium teardrop. I'm trying to fin the video again on every site that has videos but can't seem to locate it again. I'm wondering if someone has a link for it?