How to acquire Tungsten ballast ?

[slopelope]

Can anyone tell me where I can buy tungsten ballast?

Im looking for some 14mm square for a Baudis wing.

Total length needed 440mm. So about 1.5kg.

Thanks

[oipigface]

Andréas Fricke is your man. Every now and then he gets a shipment machined to order from China, flown to Toulouse and then distributed via the F3F Underground Postal Network throughout Europe and beyond. Quite how these arrangements have been affected by the dreaded lurgy I don’t know. I’ll PM you his email address.

[Les]

I have had quite a bit of ballast from Andreas. 

He now send me an email when he's going to put a order in,could add you to the list next time?

[Andy_B]

and expect to pay about £100 a Kilo 

[slopelope]

Thanks guys...Les I'll PM you 

[Sheepish]

Hi 

I don’t know if this is if any use but I have used this UK company for tungsten tooling blanks in the past.  They are helpful and will make to order

http://midlandcarbides.co.uk/

This maybe old news but I wondered if it might be of use.

Another possibility is Densimet which is as heavy as tungsten but can be machined with ordinary tools.  It is used as an anti vibration material in tool making.  There are other forms of this material Densimet is a trade name for Plansee.

[slopelope]

Thanks Sheepish

 

[Sheepish]

No problem, another possibility might be this company too.

https://www.dymetalloys.co.uk/

Both of these companies make tungsten blanks for tool manufacture.  They have a wide variety of standard shapes and also specials for their customers.  As sintered pieces would probably do for ballast pieces (grinding it is expensive) and if you can use something they have or perhaps some dead stock on their shelf it might not be as expensive as you think.  If you do need to grind small chamfers or similar it can be done with a silicon carbide abrasive wheel on a bench glider if you are careful and don’t have many to do.