The disappearing WC sample
Not me but a work collegue. I don't really have much myself yet but considering I am an experimental scientist I will do at some point.
Anyway lets go back to the 1970s when Health and Safety was a bit more lax and our hero was performing some compression tests on various WC (tungsten carbide) samples to see what stress they could withstand.

This involved placing a fist-sized slug of WC into an hydraulic press and ramping the pressure up while recording the deformation as pressure increases. Now WC is a very hard material and thus pressures involved are considerable.

The rig was in the centre of the room which was about 10 x 10 meters. The sample was placed in the centre of the press. There were no guards so the operator could see the sample as the pressure mounted.

So our hero mounts a sample into the press as he has done so many times before and sets it going and retires to a few metres away to monitor the specimen.

The pressure mounts and all seems normal. Until there is an almighty KRUMMMPP and the sample disappears. No trace of the sample remains. Whats going on?

However our hero notices that there are two holes in the walls on either side of the room at head height in exactly the same line as the sample mount. The sample has catastrophically failed and in doing so had split in two and punched holes in the wall.

At this point our protagonist turns green when he realised that if that fracture in the WC had been 90 degrees round he would be missing a head.
(Cockroach-Sombrero Cook Pass Babtridge, Tue 24 Aug 2010, 20:27, 3 replies)

I'm presuming
thats Tungsten Carbide, not Mr Armitage and Mr Shank's finest
(Sir Tainley Barking Ezekiel 23:20, Tue 24 Aug 2010, 21:40, closed)

No, he's testing America's finest hamburgers.

(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Tue 24 Aug 2010, 22:09, closed)

Yep
Thats tungsten carbide allright but after that incident he would have needed use of Shank's own hard material.
(Cockroach-Sombrero Cook Pass Babtridge, Tue 24 Aug 2010, 22:11, closed)

Tungsten carbide drills!
What the bloody hell's tungsten carbide drills?
(Halfy By light alone, Wed 25 Aug 2010, 1:09, closed)

It's his writers cramp!
Reassuring to know that I'm not the only one who could think of nothing else but that sketch.
(louveciennes , Volvospotter, Wed 25 Aug 2010, 2:13, closed)