This Gallium Metal is Amazing!

[Music] today I've put together a compilation of some of my favorite gallium videos if you enjoy this video you can make sure you don't miss any of my future releases by subscribing then click the notification bell and select all for those of you who don't know gallium is a low melting point metal which turns into a liquid at about 30 degrees centigrade which is about 85 degrees Fahrenheit and because it's non-toxic it's safe to handle you can literally hold a pool of it in the palm of your hand and pour it from one hand to another when I bought mine it came in a plastic test tube like this and you can see it's solid at room temperature so to use it I put the test tube in a bowl of warm water to raise the temperature and after a few minutes it's turned into a liquid so I could pour it out into my hand you can also see the core from the center of the test tube which didn't have time to melt it's great fun to play with and it feels really weird it can leave a grey discoloring on your hand but that washes off easily with warm water and soap and you can also melt the gallium by putting it directly in a bowl of warm water after a few minutes you can check to see if it's molten then I like to use a syringe to suck it all up it's really cool once you've got it all you can expel any water you collect it and use it for some really cool stuff like filling up moulds I needed quite a lot of gallium for this project and I filled up all eight little Lego style figures then I melted down some more and used this big syringe to fill up a load of these blocks to I left them to cool down and pop to the figures out of the mold and they looked absolutely brilliant they're nice and heavy shiny and you can really see all of the detail the blocks came out well too although some of the notches on the top didn't actually form properly but they're still really cool I also filled up this large mold to make this really big figure it's really quite heavy and you can see it's about the size of the palm of my hand look at the size difference to the smaller figures I decided to heat up with a blowtorch to melt it back down so I could use it for other projects this time I used a candle-making kit to try and make a gallium candle I pierced a hole in the end for the wick and used a small cake candle pushed through and held centrally which I encased with gallium once it had set I removed it from the mold cut off the end of the candle and lit it up it lipped straight away but then it went out so I had turned melt off some of the gallium to dig out the candle of it and tried again this time it worked pretty well as the candle burned it melted down the gallium for the next one I wanted to make a round metal ball so I poked a hole in a ping-pong ball stood it upright in an egg cup then filled it with gallium as it cooled down it actually expanded a bit so I snapped off the excess then peeled off the plastic shell to reveal a really cool almost perfectly round metal ball it feels really dense and actually rolls really well pouring gallium into molds is great fun and you can even make your own I used Olympic plasticine spread it out onto a table and made an impression of a padlock then I went one further by slicing the mold and wrapping it around this hasp and staple I smoothed out the mold then filled it with gallium once it had set I removed the plasticine and there's our padlock slightly irregular but it is quite fun and you can use a hairdryer to open the lock I also used plasticine to make a series of fidgets spinners one of the first ones I made was by simply taking an imprint of a plastic spinner then taking a skateboard wheel bearing placing it in the center and filling the mold up with gallium I left it to set then removed it from the mold and had this really cool really well balanced metal fidgets spinner I removed the caps from the bearing on my plastic video spinner and used them for the gallium wonderful for this one I rolled out some plasticine and made a spiral around a bearing then filled it with gallium it looks great and after it turned solid I removed the plasticine mold and fitted the bearing caps although this one is weighted badly and out of balance it is really cool for this one I used around plastic container to make an imprint then a pen top to make a series of spikes all the way around I added to the bearing and filled it with the gallium to make this really cool spiky fidgets spinner hand with the yellow bearing caps it looks a bit like a sunshine spinner I used two plasticine to make a dollar symbol finish spinner and even a three million subscriber special spinner to thank all my subscribers when I passed that milestone [Music] you can make a yes and no decision making spinner using gallium letters which I cast in a separate mold I just added them into the molten pool of gallium and left it all to set it's a great tool for helping you make your mind up and I even used two of these little figures that I made earlier which I embedded into a mold and stuck all together with more liquid gallium to make this really cool spinner you can see it Taizo them on really well and it's nice and strong gallium liquid metal can also be pretty devastating to aluminium or aluminum as you may call it I'll show you with this aluminium coke can I wanted to keep the top closed so I pierced a hole in the side of the can to drain out the drink then abraded the surface of the can with some sandpaper so it's mostly scratched up and added a little bit of the liquid gallium to the surface then I left it to see what happens over the next hour or so it seemed to change it was kind of absorbed into the aluminium and it appeared to change the structure and when I poked it with my finger look what happened I was able to poke a hole straight through it the can had to become soft and almost stretchy and I could sort of just pull it apart and tear off the top pretty cool huh the material isn't a house soft enough to just roll up with my fingers I kept pulling and removed the whole top it just peeled away but the rest of the structure did appear unaffected and I could just wash off the silvery gray residue on my hands with warm soapy water for the next con which I emptied in the same way I cut the bottom off with a knife dried it out with some kitchen paper and abraded the inside with sandpaper then I also did the top again I poured some gallium in and coated the inside and also added some to the top over the next hour the paint started to crack and flake it still looks like a can of coke but look how weak it is now I can just poke my finger through the side and pull pieces off it's not a sharp at all and it doesn't hurt me I pulled the top straight off and pushed my thumb right the way through then I just crushed up the whole thing in my hand it's crazy isn't it and it's not even sharp it just disintegrates I even crushed the whole body of the cam we're just left with these little pieces of almost dust and here's another one I did it just completely tears apart in my hand and I also tried it with an aluminium drinks bottle where I sanded some paint off and applied gallium look what happened I was able to just pull the whole thing apart the aluminium is a bit like a sponge it slowly absorbs the gallium and affects the material in another experiment I took an aluminium tennis racket sanded the paint off at the throat and added some gallium after just a few minutes the frame started to crack then as the gallium absorbed further up the aluminium all of a sudden this happened the tension in the frame ripped it apart crazy huh the metal is now soft and it's lost all its strength it easily just breaks apart the gallium seems to creep along the frame as it effects it just that small amount of gallium really devastated to this racket I hope you've enjoyed watching this video don't forget to subscribe and ring the bell if you want to be notified every time I launch something new and if you want to see more you can click on the links have fun stay safe and as always thanks for watching

Channel: DaveHax

Views: 9,956,026

Rating: 4.8602629 out of 5

Keywords: gallium melting point, gallium liquid metal, gallium vs aluminum, gallium and aluminum, science experiments, fidget spinners, melt gallium, gallium uses, gallium for sale, gallium mold, Gallium soda can, gallium coke can, Dave Hax, life hacks, science ideas, DIY fidget spinner, how to make, non toxic, is gallium safe, is gallium toxic, hold gallium, gallium in hand

Id: g_VYf8MdVSw

Length: 11min 40sec (700 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 10 2020