On Wed, 22 Jan 2020 19:38:11 -0700, Bob La Londe
wrote:

Somewhere along the way I acquired a little bit of stainless rod. I
think it was an Ebay purchase a very long time ago. Its some of the
first metal I purchased specifically for getting into machining. Before
I even had a mill. Just the little Chinese Harbor Freight mini lathe.

I still have two pieces a couple feet long. The rest has been used up
and turned into chips many years past. One piece is the rod I use to
raise and lower the coolant manifold on the side of the Hurco Mill head.
The other for several years was being used as the mount for the length
stop on my little horizontal bandsaw. I decided I wanted a separated
rod on the other side of the head on the Hurco mill for the air blast
setup. I'd already made an adjustable and aimable mount to go on the
rod with the coolant manifold, but I quickly realized I wanted them each
on their own mounting rod. The piece in the saw was the only piece left
I could find that was the size for the mount I had already made for the
air blast saw its getting used for that.

I was just going to order some rod, or use some I already had. I have
several pieces of stainless rod on hand now. I keep some variety of
stock for various purposes. The problem is its an odd size (I think).
It measures exactly 0.475 inches. Not 0.472" like 12mm rod. I have
some 12mm linear round rail on hand and I checked against that. Except
where its dinged up from years of use it measures exactly 0.475
everywhere. Well every where I measured it. It doesn't matter really.
I have a piece for my project, and I can stick something else in the
little bandsaw if I really need a length stop on it again. (I have a
bigger horizontal bandsaw now.) I am just curious. What would be the
standard size of 0.475" stainless rod have been from? Is it just 0.475"
rod? What was it from originally?

These are the weird questions that keep me up at night.

Bob..that is indeed 12mm rod.

Most of this rod is used in screw machines of various types and as
such..are usually sold a few thousands bigger so any surface
scuffing/scratches can be machined out to get it exactly to 12 mm as a
finished part.. If you have rod that is dead nuts to a given common
size..its because its been pre ground to that dimension. What you have
is the extruded raw rod. I have probably 500-800 lbs of such rod, from
..050-3" in diameter, some of it in pieces only a few inches long to
others at least 8' long. Flat stock is also commonly found just a
few thou bigger, though its less common..most of it is pretty close to
dimension.
As a side note...stainless has become the de facto material in most
turning shops, with the exception of the 4000 series steels. I see so
little "common" steels as to raise an eyebrow when I encounter it.

More importantly is knowing what type of stainless it is. Is it
303/316/416 etc etc?

Gunner
__

"Journalists are extremely rare and shouldn’t be harmed, but propagandists are everywhere and should be hunted for sport"

Yeah..with no bag limit.