This is simply a curiosity question. I just read that Tungsten has the highest melting point of all metals at 3,422 degrees Celsius. So how do tackle makers, in particular guys doing this out of their home, make jigs or sinkers from tungsten? Or do they have to outsource to a larger company that has the equipment to do it?
Has to be outsourced. Most people at home only work with Lead. If they are selling tungsten they are buying premade.
Its all coming direct from China. Don't be fooled
I just bought some bladed jigs from a small company. I emailed the guy to let him know how impressed I was with the attention to detail with the baits, and he emailed me back saying that the ones I bought were no longer going to be made and that he was going to a tungsten head now. It just made me curious since I figured he was probably pouring his own lead heads for the bladed jigs he was selling and I wondered how he would do that with tungsten.
Correct, lead melts at like 650 degrees and tungsten 6400.Originally Posted by Bassbuster95
Allen
Tungsten weights are not melted and poured , it would cost you a fortune if they were made this way, if you will notice all of the weights say they are 97-98 percent tungsten ,,,, they take tungsten powder and the other 2-3 percent is some type of low melt material such as led or tin , these are heated and pressed,, the other 2-3 percent is what holds the weight together and makes it solid,,
and i know of no one in the US that makes these weights, all of the small time guys order from China and re-label ,,, due to EPA regs its about impossible to have a facility here to do this kind of work ,,the last one that I know of was in Missouri and the previous administration closed that
Last edited by River-Bandit; 01-28-2020 at 07:36 AM.
Interesting information...thanks for letting me know. Do you know why the EPA has basically banned it here? Too much pollution?? What differentiates this from steel mills?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timwors.../#2c6e5cde642b
as far as what differentiates it from steel mill I'm not sure, it may be like building new oil refineries , it cost so much to build new because of the regulations that it is just not worth it, oil companies just keep upgrading and expanding existing refineries as i suspect that they are grandfathered in on a lot of the regulations
No offense, but not true. My old company had a powder metallurgy plant that made Tungsten powder. Some Heats that didn't meet spec were sold to the recreation markets, including the sinker market. All melted and made in the USA.
May I add, we also made Titanium products. We sold "off spec" Titanium products to golf club manufacturers.
As long as the company got higher revenue than the scrap value of the off spec metal, these two grade families off spec heats were routinely sold to these recreation markets.
Needless to say, grades of steel that contain W, require special melting techniques. In an AOD where tap temperatures are around 3100 degrees f, W (Tungsten) had to be "dissolved" versus being melted.
For those people that are in the specialty steel processing industry, this is the reason that Tungsten filament light bulbs are banned in manufacturing plants (same with high end writing pens with Tungsten tips). Someone throws a dead lightbulb into a scrap box and it is melted. That Tungsten filament survives and ends up in the finished product. The filament causes an intrusion that causes a week spot in the metal. Tungsten filament light bulbs cost the specialty steel industry a lot of money in trying to prevent that type of inclusion.
Edited for clarification. The actual Tungsten alloy is not readily available in the earth's crust. The vast majority of Tungsten ore is mined in China and Russia. China is the largest miner of Tungsten with Russia being second. So the raw material we bought was either from Russia or China. The raw material is either in the form of pure Tungsten or a Ferro Tungsten (includes iron).
Last edited by Chautauquanuy; 01-28-2020 at 12:21 PM.
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I have been told by a person in the machine cutting tool industry that "tungsten" fishing sinkers, jigs, etc are made in a very similar way to how machining cutting tools are made.
Here is a video about how Sandvik-Coromant, an industry leader in cutting tools, make their carbide inserts for CNC milling and turning.
Basically tungsten powder is mixed with some kind of bonding agent and pressed together into a shape using extreme pressure. From there the piece goes through a sintering process where heat allows the finish bonding and curing of the tungsten powder and bonding agent.
Highly alloyed Tungsten grades of steel start with Tungsten powder process. The tungsten powder then goes through an Hot Isostatic Pressing process. This is called HIP. Think of grains of Tungsten Powder put into a 55 gallon drum. Once the drum and powder is heated it goes through the HIP process which puts tremendous pressure on the can of powder. This is a very long process and eventually the tungsten powder becomes a solid piece of metal. It is then hot worked (Forging/GFMing or hot Rolled) to intermediate product size. The product is then extensively ground to remove the steel shell of the "can". The now solidified product is then finished via normal Long bar or flat rolled finishing techniques depending on product form.
Because ultra high pressure is used in the HIP process, the grains of powder are solidified thus not needing any "bonding agents".
The video is a good representation. However my old company would produce large products for use in many high temperature operating environments (Military and aerospace applications).
'14 Triton 18XS 150 Optimax Pro XS Fortrex 80
Kropf Park model on Chautauqua Lake
Fish Chautauqua Lake and Lake Erie
Love bass and fly fishing for Trout and Steelhead
Tungsten sinkers and jigs are made by a process called "sintering" . It isn't enviromental regs that keep it from being made in the U.S. , it is high labor cost. From what I was told is the highest amount of Tungsten is 97%, 3% is nickel and copper and that is what holds it together. The Tungten powder is combined with nickel and copper and compressed in special molds, the pressure is so high it generates enough heat to melt the nickel and copper alloys. The molten alloys are what binds the tungsten together. The machining can be done in China as the machinist are paid what amounts to $11 per day in U.S money. The person I spoke to said that if you made tungsten jigs in the states a worm weight would be incredibly expensive like $9 for a single worm weight.
Really interesting stuff. I always wondered why tungsten weights were always 97% tungsten...now I know!
This is the way I've understood it!
You can also get a custom mold made and get whatever you want by working with the factories that make the stuff. The molds ain't cheap though, and there's an additional charge if you want your mold to be exclusively yours. Starting north of a grand just for the mold, then you have to pay for whatever comes out of it, and pay some more if you don't want them to allow others to have stuff from it. Learned all this when I was trying like hell to find get some tungsten nail weights that weighed more than 1/8 (7/64...) of an oz.
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I design cutting tools, just like those in the video above from Sandvik. We work with several US suppliers that make blanks for us to grind into special forms. And as DrewFlu33 said, the dies for the pressing of this material is expensive. I suspect that cheaper labor rates overseas is why most of the tungsten sinkers come from over there.
Did you check with OM fishing? they've got 7/64 nail weights listed
http://www.omfishingsinkers.com/Tung...s_p-80527.html
Just buy tungsten electrodes and cut them to the length you want. You can buy a box of ten each that are 7" long and 3/32" in dia. for $11.95 .....or whatever other diameters you want.
https://diamondground.com/product-ca...en-electrodes/
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