This is not an element that easily submits to strict geometry. It is most similar to porcelain: brittle and ceramic-like. It melts easily and forms puddles, like tar or licorice candy, and as it cools down it turns to a taffy-like material. Upon further cooling it hardens and thin strands give way and break like cheap plastic. But what it definitely does not like to do is take the form of a cube. Our first version, sold from 2015 through the end of 2020, was cast into molds and left to harden in-situ but selenium's "personality" protested and within the confines of its squarish cells only loosely approximated the desired final form. Although in the end the result was attractive in its own way we were unsatisfied with not achieving a true cube that could furthermore accept the laser engraving we felt necessary to complete inclusion into the family of density cubes we offer.The technical hurdles that were overcome were not in truth very difficult, just laborious. The new technique still uses casting as a first step but a much bigger piece forms a so-called bolus (sounds better than "formless blob") which provides a starting point. From here a special saw whose diamond-tipped blades turn at a very slow speed is allowed to cut slives at exactly 10mm apart. And you can see where this is going. The critical step is the low-speed sawing which prevents this brittle material from the chipping which would inevitably occur with an ordinary saw or similar cutting tool. Once all the slicin' and dicin' is done the laser engraving step is a piece of cake ;-)10mm weight is 4.1±0.2g.
