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Finding/buying lathe stock

nameH10

Cast Iron
Joined
Sep 12, 2005
Location
Highland, IN
Just wondering how/where you guys find stock to cut on your lathe. I know I could buy it online from a couple of places but I'm looking for suggestions as to where the stuff might be found locally. On another forum someone suggested a hydraulics repair shop. Any other places like this I'm likely to strike it rich?

Figured this would have been covered already, so I did a search but didn't come up with any winners.

Thanks
 
i never buy material on speculation.
look at the lower right corner of your blueprint and you will see a list of parts and the materials they are made from.
order the correct material and charge the customer an aditional 20%. sometimes you can buy a whole length for the price of sawing.
after a while you will have more stock than you can believe, just make sure you mark it as usually it all smells and tastes the same.
i checked mapquest to see how far you are from Indy but there are 4 highlands in In. must be pretty popular, anyway im sure Indy would have whatever you need...jim
 
Hi Jim,

Thanks for responding. Indy is about 4 hours south of me.

I'm just a beginner hsm. I should have specified that in the first post. Looking for small scraps of this and that which I can make things out of to learn. For example, I made to spacer to repair a tool for my brother. My second project was a shaft threaded 5/16x18 on one end and 1/2x14 on the other. Not till I finished did I realize they were lh threads. Doh' don't ask, I was happy I ended up with something resembling a threaded rod. Thats all the lathe work I've done so far. Tonight my brother and I are going to try making some tool holders for his mill.

So no customers to speak of.
 
You might also try auctions. Often times, machine auctions have tons of bar stock. If you are lucky they will be tagged with material description. Good luck.
 
If not material specific, and seeing that you are near Hammond and other industrial areas, try a scrapmetal yard. Look in the yellowpages. They very often sell as well as buy, ask them. You won't be able to tell alloys but you can take a file along and check to see if you can cut it. Some let you hacksaw your needs. You should be able to discern iron, steel, brass, copper, aluminum. We regularily go to a scrapyard accross town for mechanical tubing to make fences and other non-critical stuff and they are full of bar ends (like jim is talking about, drops)and scrap parts from which projects can be turned.
 
go to companies that rebuild machines. i got a lot of shafts that had an end messed up from a bad bearing. but that did not hurt the other 3-4' of it.
 
Auctions have identified (and some not) metal stock, literally tons of it. Unless you have a large garage or shed to keep it in, you wind up not knowing what it is anyway when it builds up a nice coating of rust over you paint marks. My advice would be the same as Jims - try some of the local shops - you might even want to take some of your finished work with you to show the foreman or owner that you are serious(might result in a paying job if someone is looking for a small one-of that the shop doesn't want to do for whatever reason). Also, befreind a local machinist or two. While most shops don't exactly hand out material to people off the street, most of the ones I worked in let the employees use small odd pieces that were sitting around for their personal use, or they would order us larger pieces we needed from the steel supplier (we just had to pay them back for it).
 
True story:
As a full of it 20 yr old, I went to the local fab shop to get some material for a hot rod project. They kept a good stock and had a rack of drops.
I went in and announced "I would like a piece of scrap."
The owner just looked at me with this stupid grin and said.
"Young man, in this business, there is no such thing as scrap. We do, however, for your purchasing pleasure have smaller pieces available."

As time went on, they got used to my little projects and I always politely asked to look at the "Smaller pieces pile". Half the time I was making things in my head based on what was on the rack.

I bought lengths, sheets and "smaller pieces" from this man and his company for 30 years as my own business grew and I understood what he meant. We became friends in the process. Sometimes he would charge me full weight and I would choke and pay it. The next time he might give it to me. It all balanced out. They ultimately closed and it is a hassle now to find smaller pieces locally. Fewer shops, yada, yada.

I am pleased to say that I have been able to use that line myself a few times over the years. Too much fun.
 
My all time favorite was this kid, no more than 10 or 11 who called me about some work he needed on his go-cart. Well, our average job is around 30K but he was so serious I got one of the welders to volunteer and make the repair for him. He and his dad brought it by and we fixed it at lunch. The second best was the guy and his buddy who came by and wanted us to press out some wrist pins. When I told him our rates, he looked a little sick. One of the guys did it at lunch for a case of beer. Can't always be this helpful but it sure feels good when you can. The moral here is if you can find a local shop and actually hook up with the guy in charge he will most likely do what he can to help out inlcuding tossing you a few drops every now and then. Just don't get greedy and don't forget to thank him.
 
toolmakerjim,

So by your reckoning the 7075 block I picked up at Boeing surplus that was 15lbs for $19 should have been left on the shelf?

Or the 80 lbs of 2011 at 75 and 50 cents a pound was a bad investment that I found at an estate sale?

Hmm - aluminum at lower than scrap CAN be taken to the recycler.

Chris P
 
once found two 10' lengths of 6" round steel sitting by the curb on the way home, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't figure out how to pick them up and put them in the truck.
used to go on scavenger hunts, cruise around and check out the junk piles people toss beside the road or out on the trails, lots of good metal in some of them, may not know exactly what it is, but for home projects they're fine. once found two throws of a crankshaft with journals 8" thick and 12 inches wide on it, made a lot of things out of that.

ken.
 
Just took posession of ~400 lbs of "scrap" tungsten in 4 pieces. 'They' were using it as ballast weight in place of sandbags :D 'They' thought it was lead but measuring and weighing told the real story, which I kept to myself. They were glad to be rid of it as one employee had lost a finger while moving one of the bigger pieces (it was successfully re-attatched) so they saw this scrap material as a liability rather than an asset. Cost: $0.00. So far, the tungsten scrappers I have called are a bit perplexed as to what to do with this quantity :confused: But don't worry, I will get it sold.

Jimbo
 
There's a guy in this area (upstate SC actually) who buys all the drops from about all the steel warehouses in this area. He keeps stuff well marked and separated, and while he gets about the same price per # as the warehouse would, he doesn't have any sawing charges and he wants small orders whereas the warehouses generally don't. Might check with the steel distributors in your area and find out if someone is doing the same thing up there in Hoosier land.
 
I also buy drops if i need to make a fixture or something like that.I buy from a place called ips-tool,a metal supply house.They have different
piles of stuff--cold rolled,hot rolled,aluminum and so on.Just bought some today if fact,cold rolled steel plate and some 2" bar stock for .45c a pound.Not sure if that's good or not but for $85 in material I'll make a block squaring fixture that would cost $1800.00 if I had to buy it!
I'm in the automotive machining trade and buy tunsten as "heavy metal" to balance crankshafts.Too bad it's not in smaller pieces.

Booger
 
Just a goofy suggestion for Kendall -

If the rod is long enough, drive your truck lengthwise over the 10' rod, lift or jack up the end of the rod under the front bumper and strap it to the underside of the bumper. Then lift the rear of the rod and strap it to the underside of the rear bumper. Then drive home very carefully! This is how it is done in Mexico! I saw that here a few years ago with a pickup hauling some 20' lengths of small pipe! That was CRAZY!

A.T., who hates to leave anything of value sitting by the road, unloved!
 
My local scrap yard-recycling center keeps tool steel drops brought in by machine shops seperated in bins out in the yard. The majority has the ID paint or steel type marked on it providing it hasn't been there too long. They charged 44 cents a pound last time I was there. -Mike
 
bcstractor;
you know thats the trouble with engineers.

they read more into a statement than what is actually there.

with the limited info that name h110 gave i attempted to give what i thought was a good suggestion.

i have worked for Boeing and McDonnell~Douglas and Lockheed~Martin and as a matter of fact they all actually do keep records of materials thats how you knew that it was 7075 otherwise it could have been 6061 they both smell the same.
if you just went to a scrap bin at Joe's local machine shop you run the risk of getting anything thats aluminum.

if you were just buying material to resell as scrap always go for the profit then the material doesnt matter.

i still stand by my origional statement that if you have a customer that states on the bill of material that you damn well better satisfy that or you could at the least end up owning some parts you made incorrectly or at the worst end up in a negligent lawsuit that would give your shop to that customer.

as we found out later the parts were for a job that really didnt matter.

so dont be like Pi and start putting out what you surmise i meant...jim
 








 
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