did you know you can spend $100 and get a chunk of sapphire that could be used as a melee weapon? https://store.gemsofscience.com/products/optical-sapphire-cores-and-wafers
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@ariadne should be doable even if you wanted a single crystal, i think? they definitely make boules that are this long; you'd just need to convince a vendor to ship one of them to you without cutting
@whitequark i am mostly just concerned about it shattering in use
@ariadne bulk corundum is quite tough for something so hard. like, i used to have a cup made of sapphire and you could drop it on the desk from 10-20 cm without it shattering
you could own a dildo made out of semiconductor grade sapphire. imagine the possibilities
every once in a while i introduce people to the idea that "buy one kg of this gemstone as bulk crystal" is not only normal but outright affordable today, and it blows people's mind. the stones are still precious (to me) but most of them have gotten ridiculously cheap
"ask a fae to deliver me a piece of sapphire of my body weight" is some medieval stuff yet you could easily convince a company to do this for you today.
you can also get 4 inch diamond wafers now. you probably can't afford those but they do exist on the market
@whitequark how expensive are the machines for synthesizing diamond wafers. like ballpark
@mcc depends on the size, why
@mcc here's aliexpress selling 10x10x1mm CVD diamond for 1.5k https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005010532921715.html
@whitequark well i can afford that i guess
@whitequark i'm actually intrigued about making a 200cm long pole out of lab-grown sapphire now