On 19 Aug 2016 01:30:46 GMT, "DoN. Nichols"
wrote:

On 2016-08-18, Gunner Asch wrote:
On Wed, 17 Aug 2016 17:50:33 -0500, Ignoramus5113
wrote:

I have sold literally hundreds of steel bars on ebay. It is a real
demand item and they always sell. I cut them up on a big bandsaw into
pieces that fit flat rate boxes and ship one almost every day.

But, right now I am taking apart a big CNC horizontal mill (G&L) and
it has four CAST IRON bars for X and Y dimension slides.

The X bars are shown he

http://igor.chudov.com/tmp/Cast-Iron-Bars.jpg

They are about 3x5 inches (did not measure) and maybe 5 feet long. The rust is minimal
from just one rain.

My questions are

1) are there any uses for cast iron bricks like 3x5x10 inches long

This cast iron makes GREAT copies of KDK and Aloris toolholders..and
you can machine a set yourself quite easily. I use a fair amount of
OLD cast iron for jigs, fixtures and tooling of all sorts.

And -- for smaller chucks and lathes, can be used to make
backplates.

2) Can cast iron be sawed easily

Depends on what kind of cast iron it is. Some of it is very easy to
cut. Other kinds of it...is a bitch to cut. Grab some cast iron sash
weights and put on a good blade. You will scratch it..and rip the
teeth off your blade.

Typically -- it has large carbide crystals embedded in it. Even
tears up an angle grinder when you try to use that to cut it.

Maybe, if kept in a hot fire, and then allowed to cool *very*
slowly in a bed of ashes, it might anneal it a bit.

3) Can I guess in any way what kind of cast iron is that?

Good question!

The case hardening mentioned a few articles back is a likely
thing. You may need an angle grinder to get under the case before
sawing it.

Good Luck,
DoN.


Different Types Of Cast Iron

Cast iron is a ferrous alloy that is made by re-melting pig iron in a
capola furnace until it liquefies. The molten iron is poured into
molds or casts to produce casting iron products of the required
dimensions. Based on the application of cast iron, the alloying
elements added to the furnace differ. The commonly added alloy
elements are carbon followed by silicon. The other alloying elements
added are chromium, molybdenum, copper, titanium, vanadium, etc.

How is cast iron classified?
Based on the alloying elements added, the variation in the
solidification of the cast iron and heat treatment used, the
microstructure of the cast iron can vary. Depending upon the
application and the preferred mechanical properties, iron castings can
be classified into the following.

Types of cast iron

White cast iron

When the white cast iron is fractured, white coloured cracks are seen
throughout because of the presence of carbide impurities. White cast
iron is hard but brittle. It has lower silicon content and low melting
point. The carbon present in the white cast iron precipitates and
forms large particles that increase the hardness of the cast iron. It
is abrasive resistant as well as cost-effective making them useful in
various applications like lifter bars and shell liners in grinding
mills, wear surfaces of pumps, balls and rings of coal pulverisers,
etc.

Grey cast iron

Grey is the most versatile and widely used cast iron. The presence of
carbon leads to formation of graphite flakes that does not allow
cracks to pass through, when the material breaks. Instead, as the
material breaks the graphite initiates numerous new cracks. The
fractured cast iron is greyish in colour, which also gives it the
name. The graphite flakes make the grey cast iron exhibit low shock
resistance. They also lack elasticity and have low tensile strength.

However, the graphite fakes gives the cast iron excellent
machinability, damping features as well as good lubricating properties
making them useful in many industrial applications. The graphite
microstructure of the cast iron has a matrix that consists of ferrite,
pearlite or a combination of two. The molten grey iron has greater
fluidity and they expand well during the solidification or freezing of
cast iron. This has made them useful in industries like agriculture,
automobile, textile mills, etc.

Malleable cast iron

Malleable cast iron is basically white iron that undergoes heat
treatment to convert the carbide into graphite. The resultant cast
iron has properties that vary from both grey and white cast iron. In
case of malleable cast iron, the graphite structure is formed into
irregularly shaped spheroidal particles rather than flakes that are
usually present in gray cast iron. This make the malleable cast iron
behave like low-carbon steel. There is considerable shrinkage that
results in reduced production of cast iron as well increased costs.
Malleable cast iron can be identified easily by the blunt boundaries.

Ductile cast iron

Ductile cast iron is yet another type of ferrous alloy that is used as
an engineering material in many applications. To produce ductile iron,
small amount of magnesium is added to the molten iron, which alters
the graphite structure that is formed. The magnesium reacts with
oxygen and sulphur in the molten iron leading to nodule shaped
graphite that has earned them the name-nodular cast iron. Like
malleable iron, ductile iron is flexible and exhibits a linear stress
strain relation. It can be casted in varied sizes and into varying
thickness.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus