Author Topic: Dice made from meteoric nickel-iron  (Read 6185 times)

Offline Tinkering_Guy

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Dice made from meteoric nickel-iron
« on: July 19, 2010, 03:32:13 PM »
Since Brass_Machine wanted a description (and more pictures) of the dice I made from a slice of nickel-iron (NiFe) meteorite, this looks like a reasonable place to start.

Here's one of the better pictures:


I didn't record all the steps as I made them; this was one of my first projects, and it was half done on my UNIMAT-1 and half on my HarborFreight mini-mill.  However, I can try to describe what I did, from memory.

The first thing was to get a meteor slice from eBay and slice off a section as wide as the slice was thick.  I recorded some photos on Flickr, like
this one.

After getting a long piece that was square in cross-section, I sliced it further into six cubes.  For these operations I used a diamond saw, but have since learned to use cutoff wheels instead: "at high temperatures, carbon is essentially soluble in steel".  In other words, the diamond grit was turning into carbon steel.  Whee.

This is the point at which I moved to the mini-mill.  I lined the six cubes up and milled them square (about 0.002 in each dimension, so they're obviously slightly thinner than the original slice), and used a #1 centre-drill to put in the pips.  This was before I had DROs for the mill, so the pip positions were approximate.

I'd do things a little differently next time; that was a learning experience.  I've sold two of the dice so far at US$100 apiece; I still have the other four, and intend to make still more.

And next time I'll take (and post) more photos.
Tinkering_Guy
Hobbyist machinist, electron-pusher, software dude, and experimental chemist

Offline dsquire

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Re: Dice made from meteoric nickel-iron
« Reply #1 on: July 19, 2010, 04:29:56 PM »
Tinkering_Guy

Thanks for showing us that. Looks like a good way to make a couple of extra $$ to help pay for the mll and lathe. :ddb: :ddb:

Cheers  :beer:

Don

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