check it out this is crazy my silver
play button is melting hey guys welcome
back now in this video I thought it'd be
fun to focus on the YouTube silver play
button if you start a channel in YouTube
and gain 100,000 subscribers YouTube
will send me one of these it's a silver
play button award to celebrate your
dedication and your success but the
funny thing is they're not really made
of silver and over the years they've
gone through a number of size shape and
style changes as well so for this video
I thought it might be fun to try casting
a metal play button of our own only this
one will have some very quirky
characteristic this here is the play
button that I just created now it is a
little bit frosty because it's been
sitting in the fridge overnight and
you'll understand why in just a minute
but it is pure and solid metal we flip
it over and look at the back you can see
that shiny metallic surface and if I
drop it on the counter and here makes
the clinking noise expect solid metal to
make but here's the interesting thing if
you strike up a flame on a barbecue
tighter and hold it just under the
corner of the play button watch what
happen
you can see that within a matter of
seconds the tip of our play button
starts melting off how crazy is that
look at that nothing often forming a
little puddle of molten metal in the
bottom of our dish which is crazy right
isn't it supposed to take an insane
amount of heat to melt solid metal not
just the flame from a BBQ tonight er but
despite that fact our play button is
melting look it's coating the inner
surface with liquid metal we just ran
around that track now and it's leaving
behind a residue that's really cool oops
it just flushed right all over my
countertop look at that it's already
hard and we're if we get like peel that
off with a spoon that's crazy shiny so
update guys we just use a small flame
from a BBQ igniter to actually melt the
tip off of our play button but this next
experiment is even cooler I just want to
filled up a glass with warm water and
now if we stir our play button into it
look what happens to the metal now in
just a second you're going to see the
metal melts off the surface and drips
down to the bottom
moulton shiny silver metal liquefied by
water that is pretty cool just like an
ice cube would dissolve in hot water our
metal play button is doing the same you
have melted off quite a bit of this
metal here parts of it are still liquid
and dripping off the surface and just
when I wonder if I could break it in
town
surprisingly it is still very very solid
metal excite it melting off in my hand
as we go there let's talk for a second
about what we've been noticing here this
solid play button once they got in
contact with a flame was melt and little
beads of metal would start dripping off
now they dripped off into this dish and
some of it splattered onto the counter
and you can see if we take something
like a spoon and just nudge at it the
metal has completely solidified and
turns into a type of foil almost like
tin foil you hear that it's screaming
like when I put into it except screaming
but if we swirl it into a glass of hot
water you can see the metal melt off and
collects at the bottom forming a molten
pool with shiny metallic metal and yet
this really is molten metal but here's
the curious thing about it it's not
actually hot enough to burn you now if
you haven't figured out by now the metal
that I used to create this play button
is gallium it's number 31 on the
periodic table of elements and it's got
one of the lowest melting points of all
the metals gallium is in group 13 of the
periodic table of elements because it
shares a lot of similar characteristics
to metals like aluminum and indium but
unlike those metals the melting point of
gallium is so low that you can actually
melt it with your body heat it's
relatively safe to handle because
gallium is considered non-toxic however
it is extremely corrosive to other
metals like aluminum and steel now
interestingly enough gallium is not
found anywhere on earth in its natural
elemental state by itself the stuff that
we have here is a byproduct of mining
other metals like aluminum and zinc and
it's extremely expensive the play button
I created here today costs me about $300
quite heavy and look at this clip great
cracks in my fingers right onto the
counter because the counter is cold you
can see the bottom of this mass there's
already two loads fine it's already
getting quite hard oh it's do a little
bit liquid at top that's crazy it looks
like it's solid that some parts are
still liquidy
whoa half solid half liquid that's got a
really unique weight through it I mean
it feels pretty heavy but it's extremely
running at the same time if I jiggle it
back and forth I can actually feel the
waves of motion swelling through it
because they kind of come to a hard stop
if they bounced up against one wall and
bounced back very cool OOP and extremely
runny oh boy yeah do you maybe way that
peels off
oh good its place trade-off now I got my
gallium on Amazon it's very expensive
but i'll put a link down the description
in case you want to get some yourself it
comes in a container like this and when
you open it up it looks like a solid
chunk of oxidized metal because that's
basically what it is but to melt the
stuff downstairs easy is grabbing some
hot water and throwing it in their first
few minutes or just using a propane
torch and gently licking the sides and
getting to melt off that way the cool
thing about gallium is you can use it
over and over and over again you can
cast metal objects that are still
extremely hard but then with a little
hot water you can easily melt them down
and liquify them and catch something
else that's interesting about this if
you look down there right now you can
see it's kind of a dull gray also
happens if I heat it up and stirred up a
bit
it's so weird it's like the surface of
the metal just stops but you can still
see the motion swirling around there so
now it's so interesting 24 crazy well
just wipe this flag like we normally do
it's ready to pour now making my gallium
play button was just about as simple as
you might sing all I did was take a
little propane tortura map gas torch and
I melted down the chunk of gallium into
its liquid state then I took one of
these silicon play button molds that I
made a while ago and filled it up and
let it sit in the fridge overnight I
also found that the warmer you get the
gallium the shinier the metal get that's
pretty much it that right there is how
you make the world's first metal play
button it will melt in your hands let's
summarize what we just learned here
today gallium is a metal with a melting
point so low you can melt it in glass of
hot water you can also recast that
meddling to nearly any shape you want
and it still has the look and hardness
of other metals like aluminum it's very
expensive because it doesn't naturally
occur on earth it's the byproduct of
mining metals like aluminum and zinc and
you can find on ebay well guys thanks
for joining for this experiment today it
has been awesome hanging out with you
they'll be looking for you the next
video talk to you that yeah ow yeah play
with fire you get burned hey guys thanks
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