'normal' (I don't recall the alloy I already have, probably 300
series, whatever was cheap) stainless , unhardened, round rods around
3/16" thick and 6' long , just don't hold the weight I need them to,
without bending. I checked in McMaster and MSC but didn't find
prehardened rods ,or spring steel rods. Any suggestions as to where to
look?. I'd be open to some alloy that I could torch harden a bit, if
such a thing is practical . Don't want one breaking and dropping one
of my beauties to the ground !. I suppose such rod is sold somewhere
in large coils but I don't need much (or do I?) .

Thanks,
Dar
www.sheltech.net

On Sun, 8 Mar 2009 19:33:42 -0700 (PDT), Dar
wrote:

'normal' (I don't recall the alloy I already have, probably 300
series, whatever was cheap) stainless , unhardened, round rods around
3/16" thick and 6' long , just don't hold the weight I need them to,
without bending. I checked in McMaster and MSC but didn't find
prehardened rods ,or spring steel rods. Any suggestions as to where to
look?. I'd be open to some alloy that I could torch harden a bit, if
such a thing is practical . Don't want one breaking and dropping one
of my beauties to the ground !. I suppose such rod is sold somewhere
in large coils but I don't need much (or do I?) .

Thanks,
Dar
www.sheltech.net

McMaster has .162 dia spring tempered SS wire in 1, 5 & 10 pound
coils. See pp. 3673 & 3674.

--
Ned Simmons

On 2009-03-09, Dar wrote:
'normal' (I don't recall the alloy I already have, probably 300
series, whatever was cheap) stainless , unhardened, round rods around
3/16" thick and 6' long , just don't hold the weight I need them to,
without bending. I checked in McMaster and MSC but didn't find
prehardened rods ,or spring steel rods. Any suggestions as to where to
look?. I'd be open to some alloy that I could torch harden a bit, if
such a thing is practical . Don't want one breaking and dropping one
of my beauties to the ground !. I suppose such rod is sold somewhere
in large coils but I don't need much (or do I?) .

You know that the hardening does not change the bending
properties of the steel. It only changes what the failure mode is when
it reaches a certain point. Unhardened, it simply takes a permanent
deformation. Severely hardened, it will bend the same for a given
load, but will eventually break -- a lot sooner than you would like.
Tempered, you might get more deflection without permanent deformation,
but it still will keep bending the same for the same load.

So I don't think that hardened rod is what you need. You need a
larger diameter rod -- or another material. Carbide rods give a lot
less for a given load, but I don't think that you will find them in
3/16" diameter, and if you do, be sitting down when you get the price.

Good Luck,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On Mar 8, 10:22*pm, Ned Simmons wrote:
On Sun, 8 Mar 2009 19:33:42 -0700 (PDT), Dar
wrote:

'normal' (I don't recall the alloy I already have, probably 300
series, whatever was cheap) stainless , unhardened, round rods *around
3/16" thick and 6' long , just don't hold the weight I need them to,
without bending. I checked in McMaster and MSC but didn't find
prehardened rods ,or spring steel rods. Any suggestions as to where to
look?. I'd be open to some alloy that I could torch harden a bit, if
such a thing is practical . Don't want one breaking and dropping one
of my beauties to the ground !. *I suppose such rod is sold somewhere
in large coils but I don't need much (or do I?) .

Thanks,
Dar
www.sheltech.net

McMaster has .162 dia spring tempered SS wire in 1, 5 & 10 pound
coils. See pp. 3673 & 3674.

--
Ned Simmons

Yeah I got ahead of myself there, not finding something right away and
impulse posting/asking (^8#
thx
DS

On Mar 8, 10:54*pm, "DoN. Nichols" wrote:
On 2009-03-09, Dar wrote:

'normal' (I don't recall the alloy I already have, probably 300
series, whatever was cheap) stainless , unhardened, round rods *around
3/16" thick and 6' long , just don't hold the weight I need them to,
without bending. I checked in McMaster and MSC but didn't find
prehardened rods ,or spring steel rods. Any suggestions as to where to
look?. I'd be open to some alloy that I could torch harden a bit, if
such a thing is practical . Don't want one breaking and dropping one
of my beauties to the ground !. *I suppose such rod is sold somewhere
in large coils but I don't need much (or do I?) .

* * * * You know that the hardening does not change the bending
properties of the steel. *It only changes what the failure mode is when
it reaches a certain point. *Unhardened, it simply takes a permanent
deformation. *Severely hardened, it will bend the same for a given
load, but will eventually break -- a lot sooner than you would like.
Tempered, you might get more deflection without permanent deformation,
but it still will keep bending the same for the same load.

* * * * So I don't think that hardened rod is what you need. *You need a
larger diameter rod -- or another material. *Carbide rods give a lot
less for a given load, but I don't think that you will find them in
3/16" diameter, and if you do, be sitting down when you get the price.

* * * * Good Luck,
* * * * * * * * DoN.

I did not know that about hardening and loads and bending .
Looks like larger diameter is the way to go. I get bent(so to speak,
but not broke) paying for a $15 carbide drill , so...

These will be for hanging my wire sculpures from a central base, which
is a wire pyramid with a 2" solid chunk of Al at the apex. The rods
will go vertically into holes drilled in the chunk , and sculptures
will hang from the ends of the rods in arcs going up, outwards, and
down from the central apex/hub. My first try ended up with them
hanging down to the ground (the hub is about 60" off the ground) which
is not the effect I'm after
(^; .

Just because I like to yap sometimes .... I've been making these
sculptures for years off and on , and I mostly always went small (24"
to 60" diameter usually) because I never had anywhere to put them,
living in a small place in a city .
Now I'm a country boy (a bit like Oliver Wendell Douglas, but without
the law degree and goofy-ass wife, and the cows; there are cows and
such next door , which is close enough for me, but I digress) with
some open land and nothing much to do with it. Naturally, my thoughts
turn to making BIG geometric wire things , since these little ones ,
and even the 60" one, shrink and disappear from sight out here in the
grass and trees . Between these vague plans and the more definite
ones "Mrs. Douglas" has for our house , oh, and work (finally room for
all my stuff in the 3-space attached garage WOO HOO !!!!! ) I'll
have plenty to do until I'm too old to keep doing it ....

Someday I'll get back here with some pix


Dar

On 2009-03-09, Dar wrote:
On Mar 8, 10:54*pm, "DoN. Nichols" wrote:
On 2009-03-09, Dar wrote:

'normal' (I don't recall the alloy I already have, probably 300
series, whatever was cheap) stainless , unhardened, round rods *around
3/16" thick and 6' long , just don't hold the weight I need them to,
without bending. I checked in McMaster and MSC but didn't find
prehardened rods ,or spring steel rods. Any suggestions as to where to
look?. I'd be open to some alloy that I could torch harden a bit, if
such a thing is practical . Don't want one breaking and dropping one
of my beauties to the ground !. *I suppose such rod is sold somewhere
in large coils but I don't need much (or do I?) .

* * * * You know that the hardening does not change the bending
properties of the steel. *It only changes what the failure mode is when
it reaches a certain point. *Unhardened, it simply takes a permanent
deformation. *Severely hardened, it will bend the same for a given
load, but will eventually break -- a lot sooner than you would like.
Tempered, you might get more deflection without permanent deformation,
but it still will keep bending the same for the same load.

[ ... ]

I did not know that about hardening and loads and bending .
Looks like larger diameter is the way to go. I get bent(so to speak,
but not broke) paying for a $15 carbide drill , so...

And one possible thing which you can do with larger diameters is
to try metal tubing instead of solid wire, because most of the load
bearing part of a rod is the outer fraction of the diameter, and without
the center present you won't have as much weight load from the rod
itself.

Get a few pieces of solid and hollow of various sizes and
experiment with them to see what can handle the load for the least cost.

Note that when the load gets above a certain point with tubing
(including wind loads with an outdoor sculpture) it is likely to bend
sharply at one point crimping it to a flat instead of round area at the
point of bend.

As a result, if you have something light which can fill the
center, you can support it from that crimp failure by keeping it from
collapsing. What might work for this is an expanding foam plastic from
a can. Squirt it into the middle, and let it expand out towards both
ends. But only do this after you've verified that it can handle the
normal (no wind) load without the filling, so you have some protection
against the crimp collapse.

When you get ready -- don't post the photos here (attachments
are not allowed in discussion newsgroups like this), but put them on a
web site and post the URLs here so we can go to see. (Some news servers
will let you get away with posting the attachments, but a lot of news
servers will then toss the files away because of the attachments, so you
won't reach nearly as many people as you would by posting the URLs.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---