Wonder of wonders! High-grade gallium cubes are now available in very limited quantities. Well, until the dreaded Sold Out overlay appears anyway.

The making of gallium cubes has been an enormous challenge and most of it centers around heat. As you are probably already aware, gallium melts at just 85 degrees (30° C). This means that just holding it in your hand will melt it as surely as an ice cube. While the first thing that comes to mind is the problems of transporting it, especially during the summer months, there is the less immediately obvious problem of how to make them in the first place. The poor man’s method of just pouring it into a mold doesn’t really work. The metal instantly and perniciously sticks to the walls. Attempting to retrieve it causes fractures or deformations because solid gallium is also quite soft. On top of that, gallium expands as it turns solid and while doing so its crystals will easily create enough pressure to punch through ordinary mold materials.

Another method, actually the preferred process for making most of the metal cubes we sell, is spark erosion. With this process any starting chunk of metal (typically a roughly molded cube) can be carved in what is more or less the reverse idea of a 3D printer. A stylus issues a spark at the contact surface and the little release of energy at the tip blasts away the metal. Done hundreds of times per second you can sculpt the piece into just about any desired shape with a high degree of precision. Gallium, though, will have none of it. The stubborn metal foils the sparking tool’s efforts by momentarily melting and displacing only to resettle back onto the area that was supposed to be cleared; all while fouling the instrument and the electrolytic bath it’s surrounded in as a bonus.

That leaves cutting from a bigger block as the sensible option. However, cutting results in friction-induced heat so that if you attempted to saw through a piece all you’d get for the trouble is a splattering mess. The lab overcomes this problem by employing a diamond-laced blade that spins at a glacial pace, thus giving plenty of time for the heat to dissipate and allow a proper cube to be machined. The use of this tool, and the increased time to make them, obviously raise their cost far above the price of the unprocessed metal which is unfortunate.

Also unfortunate is the still unresolved issue of getting these cubes from Luciteria to your doorstep without all that effort going to waste due to melting in transit. All that it takes to ruin them is for the UPS truck to get stuck in traffic while the sun bakes them into a mercury-like soup. Not good and not something anyone has any control over. The solution? To stack the odds in your favor by sending it express mail in a big refrigerated box. It’s an expensive surcharge but the only way we can think of to minimize such risk (and we’ll issue a refund if this ends up happening anyway). Oh, and unless you live in Greenland we will sadly ask our international patrons to skip this one. There is no way to send this fast enough at a price that isn’t insane.

Not so important to have the laser engraving and cube that can slide in and out of the box? Buy instead the much cheaper cast version. It won’t be removable but it will be shiny and pure. Or you can just buy the empty box and melt in a little of your own gallium for even more savings!

Please note the risk of the cube melting in transit. Money back guarantee against melting will be given only if you add the refrigerated box option.

10mm cube weighs 5.8±0.1g

25.4mm cube weighs 95±1g