Re: Tungsten

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Original poster: jdwarshui@xxxxxxxxx 

Hi: Gary
From: Jared

Yes: I have worn deep ruts in grinding wheels dressing TIG rods. It is
hard to believe that in its pure form, tungsten should be so soft.

Carbon is also soft, unless of course it is perfectly covalently
bonded then you get diamonds.

Iron is considered soft as well, but again in it's pure crystaline
form it exceeds the strength of the strongest alloy steel.

My understanding is that it only takes a handfull of boron to produce
tons of high strength steel. Boron has a real tiny atomic radius so it
gets wedged between crstals making it nearly impossible for
dislocations to move.