Glad to see I am not the only jack of all trades here😁 Though I not going to be doing it in a basement, as hydrogen is way to volatile in my opinion, to work in an enclosed space with it. I can't afford to loose the right ear's hearing ability to a hydrogen explosion aswell.
Hello from Canton, Ohio. Very interesting and informative video. Much better than the superficial 'how it's made' videos of today. Saw a similar video on the mining and smelting of lead from 80 years ago. Very different attitudes towards risk/safety back then. Hats off to you for posting this piece of history.
Thanks for commenting. I worked in this plant for 38 years. Many of the processes, and indeed the machinery, we used were from the 1920s and 1930s. Time tested!
I am wondering how the plastic age changed the production process of tungsten, I thought it would be a well established process with little change. If you can, I would appreciate it if you could enlighten me please.
I love how descriptive old video like this used to be. Meaningful steps shown with precise technical (yet for the laymen) descriptions. Oh how I wish modern factory documentaries followed this template. Now it’s all about production and “interesting” angles of video and stories about the factories or workers…nothing truly relevant to the production process. Too many factories are scared to reveal there “proprietary” processes because lawyers tell them not too or “no you can’t say or show that”. It’s just dumb. Anyone agree with me?
Up until about the mid 80's if you purchased a million dollar machine you got with it a set of schemactics, diagrams, detailed descriptions of how it works, test conditions at critical points in the process that could be measured and adjust to dial it in or figure out what is not right when if malfunctions. If you had cause to take the time, and access to those manuals, you could intimately understand every circuit in the machine by studying the manuals that shipped with it. You didnt have to pass security clearance and a credit check, they just came with the machine, standard, presumed to be required to be in the posession of someone who had to keep the machine running well. Now they all do the opposite they dont want you to understand anything about how it works, that way they get paid to send their own technicians out to make a minor adjustment and they are the only ones allowed to look at a schematic. You will rent everything and get raped on the price of everything until you question wth happened to our industry, our economy?
I was wondering how in the hell they refined tungsten given its absurd melting point. i figured a solvent was involved at some point but i had no idea they used so damn many!
I think the most amazing thing about this video is that in 1964 metric measurements were being used alongside imperial, 60 years later and metric still baffles most yanks
I'd say metric was probably better known in the 60s and 70s than now. I was taught metric in high school in the basic science classes, so it wasn't some weird unknown thing. In general, all the scientific pursuits in the US use metric, but all of the normal day-to-day measurements are in English units. It used to be that most mechanical units were English, but since most cars are made outside the US now, any mechanic is more familiar with metric sizes than English. Construction trades still largely use English. At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter what system of units is used. If you are used to metric, fractions are these strange unwieldly things, and you can't wrap your head around how they work. That is simply the result of lack of training in using them, because in metric you don't need to use them. If you use fractions every day, you are used to thinking about them and working with them, and they are almost as easy to use as decimal numbers. Indeed, for a lot of everyday things they are actually easier to use. But yes, if you use English units, you really should also know the basics of metric, and how to roughly convert a number of the basic units.
Impressive use of metric in an American plant. Also an impressive process sintered and forged into a solid rather than just melted. But I suppose the temp required would rule that out.
I honestly hadn't expected such an intense regulated and complex process. I think this is the only video published which shows the wire making process?
I was fortunate to rescue this 16mm film from the closed plant. This is a continuation of the work of Edison, Steinmetz and Coolidge. Glad you found it interesting.
@@gmpullman you are a hero. film contains some of the most valuable history and knowledge of the industrial era. thank you for uploading this. now it will be digitally archived and seen by generations beyond what the creators imagined.
@@goldiegolderman1842 I'm glad you appreciate it. For the record, the entire plant on Tungsten Road in Euclid, Ohio has recently (May, 2023) been razed 😞
@@gmpullman Hey just curious since you found that info, do you know of anything involving welding tungsten to tungsten? I've been curious to know if that's a thing or not and it seems to be a hard subject to research!
That was magnificent. This is where TH-cam really shines for me. I can’t imagine how you would find such a detailed video on a subject like this from that era without TH-cam. Thank you for posting.
Awesome, this video is a master piece. This will help people to understand the intricate metallurgical magic behind making of tungsten wire from its ore. Thanks a lot for uploading.
I love everything: the video is very informative, i like the old vibe, the comments are fantastic and you reply to a lot of comments. Thank you for uploading and thanks for yall out there making these amazing comments.
Awesome stuff. A very rare yet detailed look into that process and plant. A very comprehensive list of photos you have from your flikr link in the comments. Fascinating, cheers.
Thank you. I found this 16 mm film in an old GE office with the ceiling leaking and falling in on top of it. Glad you enjoyed it. Today this plant is mostly rubble.
@@gmpullman you are a hero for pulling this media out of what was basically already wreckage. fantastic stuff. seriously, you are probably the singular reason people get to see footage and science like this and only this. godspeed you magnificent fellow!
I love videos like this, it is so fascinating watching how we produce some of the most vital things in our society. Tungsten is particularly fascinating for how tough and refractive it is.
@@gmpullman that's awesome, did you have any relationship with the plant, or were you just exploring an old abandoned factory and come across this? What did you use to convert it to a digital format?
@@ExarchGaming Worked there for 38 years. I actually had permission to have the film, plus hundreds of photos. I had the digital transfer done at a local camera shop, Dodd Camera. Many photos here: www.flickr.com/photos/gmpullman/albums/72157684497118596 I knew a few people shown in the film which was made about ten years before I started there.
I had to have some medical scans (PET) and the syringe of radioactive glucose came in a tungsten shield. I can't tell you how heavy it was, but I'm familiar with lead, and this was much heavier.
This is an important historical document. Though I cannot help but wince at several of the sequences with regard to worker safety. In particular the "cold" rolling process where a guy is pulling 1500C ingots from the furnace which spontaneously begin vigorously burning in air, and which you can easily see are releasing vast plumes of the yellow trioxide microparticles without any apparent fume extraction or ventilation. The toxicity and carcinogenicity of W and WO3 nanoparticle ingestion is still in question even today, but breathing in that much material just can't be good for health.
Hello I worked in this plant for 38 years. Some times I was covered head to toe in yellow W oxide. In some of the furnaces we processed 2% Thoriated Tungsten used for shock resistance. No mention of it being radioactive. Safety precautions were an afterthought and not really pressed until mid to late 1990s. Thank you for commenting.
@@gmpullman Wow, the evidence of hazard for tungsten is arguably equivocal, but thorium dust is absolutely beyond any doubt very dangerous. Thorotrast was being phased out around the time this film was made, so they certainly should have known.
@@fredfred2363 What a dumb take. Why don't you go huff some asbestos, it only kills around 10% of exposed people with mesothelioma after all. We'll wait.
@@fredfred2363 I worked with asbestos in many forms in the 1960s and 1970s. I'm still here too. There are quite a lot of things from the past that weren't nearly as deadly as we are now taught they were. I'm not saying there weren't possible health hazards. There were, and they were generally known. But you weren't going to catch sick and die if you just thought of the name of the substance, as many now seem to believe will happen.
wonderful presentation. A company where I worked occasionally would get a small job that involved assembling radiation detectors for the Navy and the heads were solid tungsten, and let me tell you, that stuff was heavy.
@@gmpullman A lot of your specialised knowledge may have been classified , correct ? I’ve watched your video several times. This know how was available with the USA and some select industrial powers ( USSR, Germany etc ) way back since the invention of the light bulb ! You are indeed fortunate . The processing of Tungsten in particular has always been a puzzle to me. Thanks to you now , that desire has been sated !
@@WXUZT GE pioneered the 218 "no-sag" process and many other types of tungsten powders and wire. Yes, much of the process was specialized, especially doping and anneal treatments. Also welding of ingots into longer rods for much longer wire spool length. The "recipe" and process was sold to H.C. Starck in the 1990s. Thank you.
This is the wrong video for trying to figure this out in your backyard... but at the same time it's the right video. They basically tell you every step of the process. What you really learn though... is not to do this in your backyard.
HF and HC, yes very dangerous and injuries were frequent. One fellow had a hole in his rubber apron right at his crotch. This was somewhat common as the apron wore against the edge of the trays. The acid attacked his 'fleshy' parts and he had to have everything there amputated. Hydrofluoric goes straight for the skeletal system. It seeks the calcium in your bones. Mechanical doping systems were tried and failed. The hand-in-glove was the only method that worked.
It's amazing what kind of exceptionally complex shit humans have figured out, built, and manufactured on their own in a relatively short amount of time. Not only did they think all of it up themselves but they actually got it to work which amazes me. Advancements in materials and metals are what progresses a species into the next age. The manufacture of near perfect multi level repeating and interacting geometric platonic and Archimedeian solids or quasicrystal metals is the next step. It's a complex process of already known simple principles done in a specific order that haven't been put together yet. But if humans can figure out the complex processes of making remarkable metals and advanced materials from sand/scratch they can figure that out as well. It'll be interesting to see what the next few decades of advancements in metals and materials manufacturing will bring to the table, that is if humans don't destroy themselves first over some useless morons petty and pathetic antiquated political and dogmatic bullshit and work together instead of against each other. Humans have the potential to make and build anything.
Sooo many kinds of electronic devices used to depend on tungsten. Now it's basically just the x-ray targets used in medical. And most tungsten is probably used for carbiding for drills nowadays.
Yes, LEDs took away probably 90% of the wire business. Tungsten wire is still used for some specialty lamps plus other industrial applications (welding electrodes, etc.) Much of the tungsten is used as an alloy to steel for hardness. Process has not changed very much. Only one way to tame the beast.
Yes. The place was a cesspool of hazmat. Mercury, thorium, cobalt, lead, various acids and caustics. Live better through chemistry was the mantra of the 1950s!
Pretty accurate though I wonder where our manufacturers went wrong with our tungsten. Quite possibly unacceptable amount of collateral damage during manufacturing.
A great deal of the tungsten we produced went for powdered metallurgy and not wire for lamps. There will always be some small need for tungsten wire, not just for lamps but many other uses. In the last ten years of the plant's existence no wire was made but all production went to powdered tungsten and sintered tungsten parts. Molybdenum was produced here, too.
I had always wondered how. Now I know. Thank you YT algorithm for suggesting this most excellent, educational video. And to @gmpullman for publishing it!
Wonder if they do the rolling with inert atmosphere nowadays? Looks like they lose half of their tungsten because of oxidation, ie. tungsten oxide smoke.
And of course another industry largely erased by technical advances along with all the jobs at that factory plus the jobs that supplied the materials and maintenance parts for the machines not to mention the original manufacture of those machines. I like how efficient LEDs are but I like employed Americans also. I visited parts of the Rust Belt in the 80s and 90s and was always relieved that I didn't have to live through the technical evolution that made my father's generation the last with guaranteed lifetime careers. According to the more information the entire plant site has been leveled. 😢
From whale oil for light and horse and buggy to the intense chemistry (math, physics, geology) and elaborate beyond belief manufacturing processes in well under a century. It is mind blowing, and IMHO part of the story is missing.
Women were generally excellent workers to handle the very fine wire and they had the skillful dexterity to thread the intricate wire passage through the furnace, lube and dies. Much of the wire was so fine it was barely visible to the naked eye. Thank you.
Women were employed in huge numbers in factory jobs in the US from the late 1800s into the 1970s. Any place where skill and dexterity were required in handling small parts and fine wires or filaments they were repeatedly proved to be vastly superior to men. There was a GE steam iron plant in a town near me into the early 1970s. As I recall it employed about 500 women to assemble the steam irons, and about 100 guys to do the heavy lifting and maintenance required around the plant. In many areas where there was a long-running factory, it was not uncommon for the plant to employ several generations of people. The boys and girls would get their first job at the plant around age 16 to 18, and would work there pretty much their entire life. Their mother or father or brother or sister might be employed in the same area, or some other area of the plant. A lot of people would be in their 40s or 50s or early 60s, but that was because they had been working at the plant since before they were 20.
We had about two dozen of them around the plant. www.flickr.com/photos/gmpullman/34941416722/in/album-72157684497118596/ Very durable. Some whiz-bang designed a Fiberglas tank and it destroyed itself on the first use when the agitator made it flex so much the seams came apart. (Photos in the same Flickr album) Thank you.
If the process is the same today, why not make another documentary of the same quality? It would even be possible to seize the opportunity and give more focus to parts of the process such as the production of the incandescent lamp filament, showing the machines working in much more detail and longer observation time on each part of the process.
@@vicentecamilo5636 Sharp downturn for tungsten wire with introduction of LED. Global production and quality of Moly and Wolframite (tungsten) powder increased while lowering cost.
This factory in 1960s USA is probably the same as a Chinese tungsten factory today. They say we moved up the food chain but we should still be able to produce these things locally lest we wind up at war.
Sad thing is, these plants, many of which were expanded and new machinery financed during WWII are now just piles of rubble. This GE plant in Euclid, Ohio was closed in 2016 and is now mostly gone. Many others share the same fate. NO investor will finance a new factory like this in the US.
And with LED lights now, all this tungsten wire production is probably a small fraction of what it used to be. Still fascinating that this technology was developed about the time of the Wright Brothers first flight.
Gees.. No Wonder Tungsten is so bloody expensive. It only goes through a dozen chemical processes to exist in a usable form. I wonder how much bi-waste was dumped into rivers, lakes and/or the soil at the end of the process ?
In the Jack Welch era we had many foreign visitors tour the plant. GE was looking for 'joint venture' partners and a great deal of proprietary information was sold or given away.
If human is about to go to outer space like moon & mars how exactly we want to made metal just like on earth as we lack most important material 🤔🤔🤔 or modern technology just made pure cook metal on space ???
You make a good point, sir. We did experiment with extruded tungsten paste which was then sintered, treated and drawn into wire. Also, we used thorium to reduce breakage of wire used in rough service. Thorium was an ingredient in mid-20 century toothpaste to "brighten teeth" !!
Some were trucked away. The spent sodium hydroxide was sold to a company that made drain cleaner. Acids were neutralized and dumped into city sewers. Much of the extract from the ore (lots of cobalt) was left in piles on the property where the chemicals leeched into the soil. Sometimes we had a graphite lube spill. The treatment plant actually used this opportunity to lube their mechanical filtration machinery. Thanks.
Actually in Euclid Creek about ten miles east of the Cuyahoga. There were several 'fish kill' incidents pre EPA. GE did make some effort in the '70s to better treat wastewater. @@petemclinc
This plant IS history but it wasn't the LED that killed it but the general shift away from industrial production in North America. Tungsten has many more uses today than ever before.
![[FULL EP.73] เปิดบ้าน 70 ล้าน "แป้ง Zbing" ยกมาทั้งญี่ปุ่น l เคหสถานบานปลาย l One Playground](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YBnJhTt07Pg/mqdefault.jpg)
Love this; thanks for posting. An impressively complex process for something most of us take for granted.
Thank you for your comments. Yes, this film was from the era of great industrial might in the U.S.
I'm not one taking Tungsten for Granted!!! It's Rare!!! and Rarified!!!
Naaa man. Glad I finally found this. Been looking for decades for a way to make a light bulb...
I want to build a tungsten factory in my basement. This video was very helpful.
Glad to see I am not the only jack of all trades here😁
Though I not going to be doing it in a basement, as hydrogen is way to volatile in my opinion, to work in an enclosed space with it. I can't afford to loose the right ear's hearing ability to a hydrogen explosion aswell.
Hello from Canton, Ohio. Very interesting and informative video. Much better than the superficial 'how it's made' videos of today. Saw a similar video on the mining and smelting of lead from 80 years ago. Very different attitudes towards risk/safety back then. Hats off to you for posting this piece of history.
Glad you enjoyed. I visited Canton frequently. Used to board the Broadway Limited there!
Always fascinating to see industrial production processes before the plastic age.
Thanks for commenting. I worked in this plant for 38 years. Many of the processes, and indeed the machinery, we used were from the 1920s and 1930s. Time tested!
I am wondering how the plastic age changed the production process of tungsten, I thought it would be a well established process with little change. If you can, I would appreciate it if you could enlighten me please.
I love how descriptive old video like this used to be. Meaningful steps shown with precise technical (yet for the laymen) descriptions. Oh how I wish modern factory documentaries followed this template. Now it’s all about production and “interesting” angles of video and stories about the factories or workers…nothing truly relevant to the production process. Too many factories are scared to reveal there “proprietary” processes because lawyers tell them not too or “no you can’t say or show that”. It’s just dumb. Anyone agree with me?
Up until about the mid 80's if you purchased a million dollar machine you got with it a set of schemactics, diagrams, detailed descriptions of how it works, test conditions at critical points in the process that could be measured and adjust to dial it in or figure out what is not right when if malfunctions. If you had cause to take the time, and access to those manuals, you could intimately understand every circuit in the machine by studying the manuals that shipped with it. You didnt have to pass security clearance and a credit check, they just came with the machine, standard, presumed to be required to be in the posession of someone who had to keep the machine running well. Now they all do the opposite they dont want you to understand anything about how it works, that way they get paid to send their own technicians out to make a minor adjustment and they are the only ones allowed to look at a schematic. You will rent everything and get raped on the price of everything until you question wth happened to our industry, our economy?
No
@@laserflexr6321nowadays you gotta pay for the manual
This is amazing, thank you for rescuing this film
I am glad you found it informative. Thank you for your comment.
I was wondering how in the hell they refined tungsten given its absurd melting point. i figured a solvent was involved at some point but i had no idea they used so damn many!
I think the most amazing thing about this video is that in 1964 metric measurements were being used alongside imperial, 60 years later and metric still baffles most yanks
I'd say metric was probably better known in the 60s and 70s than now. I was taught metric in high school in the basic science classes, so it wasn't some weird unknown thing. In general, all the scientific pursuits in the US use metric, but all of the normal day-to-day measurements are in English units. It used to be that most mechanical units were English, but since most cars are made outside the US now, any mechanic is more familiar with metric sizes than English. Construction trades still largely use English.
At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter what system of units is used. If you are used to metric, fractions are these strange unwieldly things, and you can't wrap your head around how they work. That is simply the result of lack of training in using them, because in metric you don't need to use them. If you use fractions every day, you are used to thinking about them and working with them, and they are almost as easy to use as decimal numbers. Indeed, for a lot of everyday things they are actually easier to use. But yes, if you use English units, you really should also know the basics of metric, and how to roughly convert a number of the basic units.
Impressive use of metric in an American plant. Also an impressive process sintered and forged into a solid rather than just melted. But I suppose the temp required would rule that out.
Yes, all processes we used were done in metric measurements. Our sources and buyers were a global market so it only made sense. Thank you.
I honestly hadn't expected such an intense regulated and complex process. I think this is the only video published which shows the wire making process?
I was fortunate to rescue this 16mm film from the closed plant. This is a continuation of the work of Edison, Steinmetz and Coolidge. Glad you found it interesting.
@@gmpullman you are a hero. film contains some of the most valuable history and knowledge of the industrial era. thank you for uploading this. now it will be digitally archived and seen by generations beyond what the creators imagined.
@@gmpullman Thank you for saving this film!
@@goldiegolderman1842 I'm glad you appreciate it. For the record, the entire plant on Tungsten Road in Euclid, Ohio has recently (May, 2023) been razed 😞
@@gmpullman Hey just curious since you found that info, do you know of anything involving welding tungsten to tungsten? I've been curious to know if that's a thing or not and it seems to be a hard subject to research!
That was magnificent. This is where TH-cam really shines for me. I can’t imagine how you would find such a detailed video on a subject like this from that era without TH-cam. Thank you for posting.
Glad I could contribute in a small way. Appreciate the feedback!
Fantastic. What we did before utube I cannot remember.
I had no idea that I wanted to know how Tungsten is made, but here I am. Thank you for scratching that itch I didnt know I had.😅
Never too old to learn new things!
Almost identical density to gold. Love it. To have some and feel it's weight is glorious.
I want to make love to tungsten!!!!!!
Awesome, this video is a master piece. This will help people to understand the intricate metallurgical magic behind making of tungsten wire from its ore. Thanks a lot for uploading.
It would appear they were not worried about any toxicity from the Tungsten.
Yes, because tungsten is about as toxic as iron, won't kill you unless a tungsten brick falls on your head.
Watching dr stone spoilers
I came here looking for my people.
We are a hivemind.
@@victorelias7208 we are indeed.
But its complicated here i hope dr stone showed all the process
It's a shame there isn't more of us here
I love everything: the video is very informative, i like the old vibe, the comments are fantastic and you reply to a lot of comments. Thank you for uploading and thanks for yall out there making these amazing comments.
I appreciate your comment! Thanks
Amazing and very complex process to create tungsten wire.
love the crisp sound of oldies
Awesome stuff. A very rare yet detailed look into that process and plant.
A very comprehensive list of photos you have from your flikr link in the comments. Fascinating, cheers.
Thank you. I found this 16 mm film in an old GE office with the ceiling leaking and falling in on top of it. Glad you enjoyed it. Today this plant is mostly rubble.
@@gmpullman you are a hero for pulling this media out of what was basically already wreckage. fantastic stuff. seriously, you are probably the singular reason people get to see footage and science like this and only this. godspeed you magnificent fellow!
I love videos like this, it is so fascinating watching how we produce some of the most vital things in our society. Tungsten is particularly fascinating for how tough and refractive it is.
I'm glad you liked it. This 16mm film was almost destroyed by a leaking roof in the old office at the GE plant where I found it. Thank You.
@@gmpullman that's awesome, did you have any relationship with the plant, or were you just exploring an old abandoned factory and come across this?
What did you use to convert it to a digital format?
@@ExarchGaming Worked there for 38 years. I actually had permission to have the film, plus hundreds of photos. I had the digital transfer done at a local camera shop, Dodd Camera. Many photos here:
www.flickr.com/photos/gmpullman/albums/72157684497118596
I knew a few people shown in the film which was made about ten years before I started there.
@@gmpullman That is amazing work, thank you so much for sharing that with us.
@@jonathanbuxton-carr3350 Thank you for your comment. Just today I received a photo of the crews on site demolishing this facility. Gone forever.
I'm amazed at how heavy it is. A chunk the size of a small coffee can weighs almost 100 pounds.
That’s why “tungsten” is Swedish for “heavy stone”.
I had to have some medical scans (PET) and the syringe of radioactive glucose came in a tungsten shield. I can't tell you how heavy it was, but I'm familiar with lead, and this was much heavier.
This is an important historical document. Though I cannot help but wince at several of the sequences with regard to worker safety. In particular the "cold" rolling process where a guy is pulling 1500C ingots from the furnace which spontaneously begin vigorously burning in air, and which you can easily see are releasing vast plumes of the yellow trioxide microparticles without any apparent fume extraction or ventilation. The toxicity and carcinogenicity of W and WO3 nanoparticle ingestion is still in question even today, but breathing in that much material just can't be good for health.
Hello
I worked in this plant for 38 years. Some times I was covered head to toe in yellow W oxide. In some of the furnaces we processed 2% Thoriated Tungsten used for shock resistance. No mention of it being radioactive. Safety precautions were an afterthought and not really pressed until mid to late 1990s. Thank you for commenting.
@@gmpullman Wow, the evidence of hazard for tungsten is arguably equivocal, but thorium dust is absolutely beyond any doubt very dangerous. Thorotrast was being phased out around the time this film was made, so they certainly should have known.
And yet here we are. This content creator is apparently alive and well years later after intense exposure to everything that is banned today. SMH.
@@fredfred2363 What a dumb take. Why don't you go huff some asbestos, it only kills around 10% of exposed people with mesothelioma after all. We'll wait.
@@fredfred2363 I worked with asbestos in many forms in the 1960s and 1970s. I'm still here too. There are quite a lot of things from the past that weren't nearly as deadly as we are now taught they were. I'm not saying there weren't possible health hazards. There were, and they were generally known. But you weren't going to catch sick and die if you just thought of the name of the substance, as many now seem to believe will happen.
wonderful presentation. A company where I worked occasionally would get a small job that involved assembling radiation detectors for the Navy and the heads were solid tungsten, and let me tell you, that stuff was heavy.
Thank You For this exceptional upload !
Glad you enjoyed it. I worked in this plant for 38 years.
@@gmpullman A lot of your specialised knowledge may have been classified , correct ? I’ve watched your video several times. This know how was available with the USA and some select industrial powers ( USSR, Germany etc ) way back since the invention of the light bulb ! You are indeed fortunate . The processing of Tungsten in particular has always been a puzzle to me. Thanks to you now , that desire has been sated !
@@WXUZT GE pioneered the 218 "no-sag" process and many other types of tungsten powders and wire. Yes, much of the process was specialized, especially doping and anneal treatments. Also welding of ingots into longer rods for much longer wire spool length. The "recipe" and process was sold to H.C. Starck in the 1990s. Thank you.
This is the wrong video for trying to figure this out in your backyard... but at the same time it's the right video. They basically tell you every step of the process. What you really learn though... is not to do this in your backyard.
Wow that is quite a complex process.. No wonder the stuff is pricey..
I can't believe that dude has his hands in hydrochloric AND hydroflouric acid combo
I hope he was paid well - he had good PPE 👍 Change them filters 😜
HF and HC, yes very dangerous and injuries were frequent. One fellow had a hole in his rubber apron right at his crotch. This was somewhat common as the apron wore against the edge of the trays. The acid attacked his 'fleshy' parts and he had to have everything there amputated. Hydrofluoric goes straight for the skeletal system. It seeks the calcium in your bones. Mechanical doping systems were tried and failed. The hand-in-glove was the only method that worked.
These old vids are pretty much all I can handle when really hungover.
Here's to 'ya, buddy. Make that a double!
so I had to make tungsten on a mod by angel66 for factorio, now this explains why I had to do so much to make some lol
Yes, Tungsten "Heavy Stone" is a tough animal to tame. High heat, purity, fine grain structure. All tricky to implement.
It's amazing what kind of exceptionally complex shit humans have figured out, built, and manufactured on their own in a relatively short amount of time. Not only did they think all of it up themselves but they actually got it to work which amazes me. Advancements in materials and metals are what progresses a species into the next age. The manufacture of near perfect multi level repeating and interacting geometric platonic and Archimedeian solids or quasicrystal metals is the next step. It's a complex process of already known simple principles done in a specific order that haven't been put together yet. But if humans can figure out the complex processes of making remarkable metals and advanced materials from sand/scratch they can figure that out as well. It'll be interesting to see what the next few decades of advancements in metals and materials manufacturing will bring to the table, that is if humans don't destroy themselves first over some useless morons petty and pathetic antiquated political and dogmatic bullshit and work together instead of against each other. Humans have the potential to make and build anything.
You pretty much summed things up well. Thanks for the comments!
Tungsten is an amazing element.....so dense!
Sooo many kinds of electronic devices used to depend on tungsten. Now it's basically just the x-ray targets used in medical. And most tungsten is probably used for carbiding for drills nowadays.
Thankyou for posting,
After all this trouble to get tungsten metal we just throw away millions of light bulbs totaling hundreds of pounds of scrap tungsten annually.
I'm going to try that at home.
This was happening 70 years ago. How advanced has the process gotten by now, and also obsolite because of leds?
Yes, LEDs took away probably 90% of the wire business. Tungsten wire is still used for some specialty lamps plus other industrial applications (welding electrodes, etc.) Much of the tungsten is used as an alloy to steel for hardness. Process has not changed very much. Only one way to tame the beast.
Wow! Those processes used a lot of really dangerous chemicals.
Yes. The place was a cesspool of hazmat. Mercury, thorium, cobalt, lead, various acids and caustics. Live better through chemistry was the mantra of the 1950s!
Really sad to see this from a period of long gone manufacturing in America. With this plant long gone where does the tungsten that is used now made??
I'm not one taking Tungsten for Granted!!! It's Rare!!! and Rarified!!!
How did they come with those ideas for tungsten extraction and casting, that's brilliant.
China. Literally China.
Pretty accurate though I wonder where our manufacturers went wrong with our tungsten. Quite possibly unacceptable amount of collateral damage during manufacturing.
Incandescent lamps, which are the major use of tungsten, are being outlawed in the USA because they are energy inefficient.
Lamps haven't been the major use of Tungsten for years sorry mate.
A great deal of the tungsten we produced went for powdered metallurgy and not wire for lamps. There will always be some small need for tungsten wire, not just for lamps but many other uses. In the last ten years of the plant's existence no wire was made but all production went to powdered tungsten and sintered tungsten parts. Molybdenum was produced here, too.
I’m convinced the narrator is a young Robert Wagner.
Back in the good days when we used to make things in the US. Now our major product is victims.
I had always wondered how. Now I know.
Thank you YT algorithm for suggesting this most excellent, educational video. And to @gmpullman for publishing it!
TH-cam thinks this video is Sexy, and I agree.
Wonder if they do the rolling with inert atmosphere nowadays?
Looks like they lose half of their tungsten because of oxidation, ie. tungsten oxide smoke.
Yeah I bet they don’t shield with hydrogen either.
As far as I know rolling is still done in open air. After EPA we collected the tungsten oxides in huge bag houses and reprocessed it.
Not for rolling but in other swaging processes it was. Annealing was one such process. @@techman8817
And of course another industry largely erased by technical advances along with all the jobs at that factory plus the jobs that supplied the materials and maintenance parts for the machines not to mention the original manufacture of those machines. I like how efficient LEDs are but I like employed Americans also. I visited parts of the Rust Belt in the 80s and 90s and was always relieved that I didn't have to live through the technical evolution that made my father's generation the last with guaranteed lifetime careers. According to the more information the entire plant site has been leveled. 😢
From whale oil for light and horse and buggy to the intense chemistry (math, physics, geology) and elaborate beyond belief manufacturing processes in well under a century. It is mind blowing, and IMHO part of the story is missing.
Note the people in the video; mostly older people and a lot of women (for the time), these aren't your typical factory workers.
Women were generally excellent workers to handle the very fine wire and they had the skillful dexterity to thread the intricate wire passage through the furnace, lube and dies. Much of the wire was so fine it was barely visible to the naked eye.
Thank you.
@@gmpullmanstfu who asked?
Yes, when factory jobs were plentiful and houses cost 1 years salary or less. I'm sure the exposure to the metal particles and chemicals was high.
Women were employed in huge numbers in factory jobs in the US from the late 1800s into the 1970s. Any place where skill and dexterity were required in handling small parts and fine wires or filaments they were repeatedly proved to be vastly superior to men. There was a GE steam iron plant in a town near me into the early 1970s. As I recall it employed about 500 women to assemble the steam irons, and about 100 guys to do the heavy lifting and maintenance required around the plant.
In many areas where there was a long-running factory, it was not uncommon for the plant to employ several generations of people. The boys and girls would get their first job at the plant around age 16 to 18, and would work there pretty much their entire life. Their mother or father or brother or sister might be employed in the same area, or some other area of the plant. A lot of people would be in their 40s or 50s or early 60s, but that was because they had been working at the plant since before they were 20.
That's crazy they got Captain Disillusion to narrate this...
Wow, a cypress stave tank..
We had about two dozen of them around the plant.
www.flickr.com/photos/gmpullman/34941416722/in/album-72157684497118596/
Very durable. Some whiz-bang designed a Fiberglas tank and it destroyed itself on the first use when the agitator made it flex so much the seams came apart. (Photos in the same Flickr album)
Thank you.
If the process is the same today, why not make another documentary of the same quality? It would even be possible to seize the opportunity and give more focus to parts of the process such as the production of the incandescent lamp filament, showing the machines working in much more detail and longer observation time on each part of the process.
That would be nice if the plant had not been shut down and razed in 2017. Thank you.
@@gmpullman I didn't really know that the factory had that purpose. What caused the end of the factory? Thank you for letting me know.
@@vicentecamilo5636 Sharp downturn for tungsten wire with introduction of LED. Global production and quality of Moly and Wolframite (tungsten) powder increased while lowering cost.
fascinating!
Thank you. Glad you enjoyed the film.
seems like the oxide isn't the only thing that's doped in here
Came here for one reason, and I got my answer thanks.
This factory in 1960s USA is probably the same as a Chinese tungsten factory today. They say we moved up the food chain but we should still be able to produce these things locally lest we wind up at war.
Sad thing is, these plants, many of which were expanded and new machinery financed during WWII are now just piles of rubble. This GE plant in Euclid, Ohio was closed in 2016 and is now mostly gone. Many others share the same fate. NO investor will finance a new factory like this in the US.
And with LED lights now, all this tungsten wire production is probably a small fraction of what it used to be. Still fascinating that this technology was developed about the time of the Wright Brothers first flight.
Neat
Gees.. No Wonder Tungsten is so bloody expensive. It only goes through a dozen chemical processes to exist in a usable form.
I wonder how much bi-waste was dumped into rivers, lakes and/or the soil at the end of the process ?
Great video from the industrial age of North America and Europe. I hope the Chinese recorded all of this for global supply operations now.
In the Jack Welch era we had many foreign visitors tour the plant. GE was looking for 'joint venture' partners and a great deal of proprietary information was sold or given away.
it is a professional post to show the details.
Indeed it is. Thank you.
Bravo........tungsten........the light bulb ........not only light but heat ur house ......two in one.....cheers
Cheers! Thanks...
Spoiler: The narrator's grandad was Marvin the Martian.
Love the narrators of these post-War documentaries. Music was from Lawrence Welk!
@@gmpullmanI love it!
narrator sounds like Capt. Sobel
If human is about to go to outer space like moon & mars how exactly we want to made metal just like on earth as we lack most important material 🤔🤔🤔 or modern technology just made pure cook metal on space ???
2:04 tungsten toothpaste
You make a good point, sir. We did experiment with extruded tungsten paste which was then sintered, treated and drawn into wire. Also, we used thorium to reduce breakage of wire used in rough service. Thorium was an ingredient in mid-20 century toothpaste to "brighten teeth" !!
Here after hearing Elon Musk talk about how hard it is to make tungsten.
Sad... that you listen to that clown.
Nerdgasm
Where did they dump all those waste chemicals 😅😅😅
Some were trucked away. The spent sodium hydroxide was sold to a company that made drain cleaner. Acids were neutralized and dumped into city sewers. Much of the extract from the ore (lots of cobalt) was left in piles on the property where the chemicals leeched into the soil. Sometimes we had a graphite lube spill. The treatment plant actually used this opportunity to lube their mechanical filtration machinery.
Thanks.
In the Cuyahoga River...
Actually in Euclid Creek about ten miles east of the Cuyahoga. There were several 'fish kill' incidents pre EPA. GE did make some effort in the '70s to better treat wastewater. @@petemclinc
The Euclid Creek would make sense. This plant must have been part of the Nela Park
complex in Euclid/East Cleveland.@@gmpullman
This is why my Grandfather was part of the Greatest Generation.
With the advent of LED lighting this will soon be history.
Nah, Tungsten is used everywhere.
This plant IS history but it wasn't the LED that killed it but the general shift away from industrial production in North America. Tungsten has many more uses today than ever before.
only here in case i get turned to stone and reanimate 3000 years later
I hope your reanimation is successful. Please make a vid! Thanks
Mmmmmmmm ingots
XLNT
Senku
Senku awakens the Stone World: Tung sten = Heavy Stone. Thank you
Certainly still human body is the best creation and this life is only a sample and field prior to death and eternal hereafter
Insha'Allah my brother/sister. Peace to you and your loved ones.
The music accompanying the narration is very loud and annoying.
I could complain to the producer but they went out of business in the 1970s. Thanks for watching.
The horrible intrusive music of yesteryear!!! Ugh! Maybe they thought it was beneficial?
It was the times. Thanks.