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FrozenGate by Avery

Multi-element GB (official)

Nothing today either --- Any shipping updates, Mark ??

Mike

OOPS - I didn't see your post above. No Problems here..
 
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Hmm.. i'm international, so i guess it will take some time to get here - but good to know its on its way!
 
I got mine a couple minutes ago! I melted the indium into an ingot so I could feel how soft it really was. The gallium came melted to the bag.
 
Nooo! I set my ingot of gallium next to my ingot of indium...and they mixed. I was able to salvage the indium as a pure ingot, but now my gallium is contaminated and melts way faster than it did before. It is even barely liquidy at room temp. :(
 
Mike, I'm looking to do that too. I'm on vacation till the first, so I won't be able to do it, but if you get anywhere please let me know! I found this bit of information online, not sure if it's accurate, but here goes:

"Best trick is to melt the Bismuth on an electric pot heater. Allow it to cool very slowly using a thermometer to make sure it stays *just* above the melting point. Using a pair of tongs, touch a small piece of Bismuth to the surface and hold it there while dropping the temperature to *just* below the melting point. Then lift the metal bit out after a minute or two. If you do it right, you can get some fantastic looking shapes."
 
Got my bismuth today :)

Very nice stuff, interesting shaped droplets too... i quickly cast part of it into two discs, results look promising for the levitating magnet setup, though i think i needs re-casting to make a stable setup...

tnx!
 
could anyone who got indium test if its possible to directly solder aluminum with it? from what i heard, it sticks to much about anything, including glass and ceramic. it would be great if we could solder aluminum heatsinks directly into hosts, or lasermodules directly into the heatsink! until now thats only possible with copper..
if anyone wants to give it a try, simply melt a bit of indium on aluminum, with the aluminum hotter than the indiums melting point too?

manuel
 
I doubt it will work. The problem with soldering (or fusing) aluminium is not so much the bulk metal, but its outer oxidized layer. It is even possible to use tin-based solders to bond pieces of aluminium together, but this requires specialty fluxes to have any chance of working.

Any compound that ruins the oxide layer permanently will practially destroy your aluminium part. Merucry is one such agent - once it penetrates the oxide coat it will form an amalgam and keep exposing aluminium the atmosphere, turning a solid block into a pile of oxide dust within a day or so.
 
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