A box of glass beads
Two kilograms of micro-beads arrived and I've spent the afternoon pouring them between containers like a child.
Two kilograms of glass micro-beads arrived this morning as a sample, and I've achieved almost nothing since.
They pour like water and sound like rain. No smell at all, which is the entire reason they're worth four times what a plastic pellet costs — grain fillings develop a smell within a year and everybody who has owned one knows the smell I mean.
The useful observation, buried under the playing: at 1.4 kg in a bag roughly the size of the core, the weight moves in a way that feels considerably better than a solid mass would. It settles around whatever it's resting on. I hadn't expected the difference to be as noticeable as it is.
The less useful observation: the sound is a problem. In a completely quiet bedroom, a core this loose is audible when you shift. I need to look at compartment stitching to stop it moving so freely, which adds a manufacturing step.
Adding it to the list.