On 10/13/2010 10:28 AM, xman wrote:
I notice most of my suppliers don't stock iron.

I use steel and aluminum for most of my stuff. Would like to try some
iron.

I know barbells, some flywheels (bike exercise equipment) are iron.

any ideas?

There's iron and there's iron. If you mean "cast iron" then you need to
get some that's of a grade to be machinable -- it is very easy to cool
cast iron too quickly for easy machinability, leaving it brittle and hard.

McMaster carries it (spendy!). Dunno about Enco or other suppliers, but
you could check. Some older cars used cast iron crankshafts, but I've
never done anything more than toy with the notion of trying to cut good
bits out of them, and you'd certainly want to know if it was cast you're
using and not forged steel.

Much cast iron is going to be cast in shapes already, making it hard to
machine anything useful.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

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