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?

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

Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" was written for you.
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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?



You may want to differentiate between iron and cast iron. Iron as a pure
material is not used for much but is sort after by blacksmiths as it can
be worked at higher temperatures than steel. Steel is an iron carbon
alloy at it simplest, typically having up to 1% or thereabout carbon.
Cast iron typically has between 2% to 4% carbon. barbells and flywheels
are typically cast iron. If cast iron is what you want then you may want
to try asking for Meehanite which is a continuously cast material.

It is available in block, bar and plate in multiple flavors on the web....Google it.
Steve

"xman" wrote in message ...
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?

Old sash window counterweights have iron bars of about one inch diam.
They aren't carefully made and could have blowholes but should be
alright for lots of jobs. I made some valve guides for a vintage
motorcycle and they work fine.

Jordan

On 2010-10-14, Jordan wrote:
Old sash window counterweights have iron bars of about one inch diam.
They aren't carefully made and could have blowholes but should be
alright for lots of jobs. I made some valve guides for a vintage
motorcycle and they work fine.

The one time I tried machining an old sash counterweight (saved
when the house was remodeled), it was full of hard carbide inclusions
and tore up the brazed carbide tool which I was using on it. I never
tried the others from the same source.

I think that you need to heat them up red hot and anneal them if
you want to do reasonable machining with that as a material.

Of course -- the sash weights were typically the last things to
be poured for each melt (to use up what was left from whatever else was
being made) and tended to be highly variable.

Enjoy,
DoN.

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On Oct 13, 1:28*pm, 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?

Do you mean wrought iron or cast iron?

Mild steel that's been heated red and cooled slowly in a fire is close
to wrought iron.

I've machined Chinese cast iron exercise weights a few times. A light
cut with carbide showed the hard spots which are lighter colored and
shinier. After grinding them out, frequently resharpened HSS was
enough to rough out the shape. I switched back to carbide for the
finish cut. My lathe is old and worn and tends to chip carbide on
heavier cuts.

Water pipe fittings are an easily machined grade of cast iron. You
might find a wider range of shapes and sizes and wall thicknesses at a
plumbing supplier than a retail store.

jsw

I've used trailer wheel hubs to make a lathe face plate and a chuck
backing plate. I've also used a barbell weight retaining collar. All
cast iron ... machined nicely, as I recall.

Bob

On Oct 15, 8:39*am, Bob Engelhardt wrote:
I've used trailer wheel hubs to make a lathe face plate and a chuck
backing plate. *I've also used a barbell weight retaining collar. *All
cast iron ... machined nicely, as I recall.

Bob

I suspect that cast iron which has had any machining at all done on it
will be easier to work with than pieces like barbells that haven't.
They have an incentive to make their tools last longer. However check
that it isn't TOO weak and crumbly. I have a late 1970's Duracraft
drill press seemingly made of cheesy backyard cast iron left over from
the Great Leap Forward.

jsw

On Oct 15, 6:03*am, Jim Wilkins wrote:
On Oct 13, 1:28*pm, 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?

Do you mean wrought iron or cast iron?

Mild steel that's been heated red and cooled slowly in a fire is close
to wrought iron.

I've machined Chinese cast iron exercise weights a few times. A light
cut with carbide showed the hard spots which are lighter colored and
shinier. After grinding them out, frequently resharpened HSS was
enough to rough out the shape. I switched back to carbide for the
finish cut. My lathe is old and worn and tends to chip carbide on
heavier cuts.

Water pipe fittings are an easily machined grade of cast iron. You
might find a wider range of shapes and sizes and wall thicknesses at a
plumbing supplier than a retail store.

jsw

Pipe fittings are malleable iron, not the same as gray iron. They go
through a heat treat process that changes the structure, also makes it
easier to machine.

As far as barbell weights and sash weights, they're not machined
parts, except for holes in the barbell weights. My experience with
sash weights is that they're full of blowholes, generally chilled, and
will take the edge right off any tool you care to rub up against
them. I got to toss about 400 lbs of them into a recycler skip, most
broke up from a 10' drop. Probably the dregs of the dregs of the
cupola, they made sash weights out of any batch of metal that wasn't
fit for anything else. Probably the barbell weights are the same.

I've gotten some continuous cast rounds that have had a soft core but
the outer inch or so was high-carbide, apparently got chilled in the
processing. Ended up doing a very rough anneal on them, that helped,
but didn't get rid of all the carbide. There's a specific heat-
cooling regimen that needs to be done to get the structure back to
graphitic cast iron and I don't have the equipment for that. The
swarf from the inner parts was the usual black powdery stuff, changed
to silver when the bit hit the carbide layer and started squealing
like a pig. The tool edge went shortly after.

Unchilled gray iron machines like a dream, it's actually soft enough
that a guy can whittle on it with a pocket knife. Kind of the
pinewood of the Industrial Revolution. Downside is that you get a
whole lot of powdery black stuff off of it, all that free graphite
mixed with the iron dust. Way covers are a Good Idea.

If the O.P. really wants to get into it, Lindsey Books has a number of
backyard foundry books, scrap engine blocks and heads would be one
source for casting material.

Stan