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Scrap steel selection
- Thread starter gwelo62
- Start date
- Replies 15
- Views 2,106
johnoder
Diamond
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2004
- Location
- Houston, TX USA
Even cheap car "shafts" are at least induction hardened where they have to be - if they were not, they would not last at all
dalmatiangirl61
Diamond
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2011
- Location
- BFE Nevada/San Marcos Tx
Take a file with you, if the file will cut it you will be able to turn it, if the file skates across it, toss it back. Not too many car parts have good round stock, your best bet would probably be axle shafts, cv axles, and strut shafts, splined areas are hardened, you can anneal by getting red hot and burying in bucket of sand or ashes. I prefer scrap from machinery, lots more longer sections of quality round stock.
SLK001
Stainless
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2015
- Location
- Coral Springs, FL USA
Take any you can get cheaply. Shafts are good quality alloy that you can easily anneal so that they are workable. I used to anneal shafts in the fireplace during the winter.
LKeithR
Stainless
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2011
- Location
- Langley, B.C.
I can't think of any reason why a "professional" machinist would go scrounging through scrap
piles for material.
Your best bet is to determine your needs and buy the right material in the right sizes. You can't
make money dickin' around with mystery metal...
piles for material.
Your best bet is to determine your needs and buy the right material in the right sizes. You can't
make money dickin' around with mystery metal...
SLK001
Stainless
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2015
- Location
- Coral Springs, FL USA
Then you're not thinking hard enough. A lot of us here are just hobbyists - not doing machining for a living.
If you have a project that needs a certain kind of metal, then "yes", obtain that metal. But old automobile shafts are really not "mystery metals" - you know quite a bit about them. You may not know the exact alloy, but you do know that they are a high carbon alloy that can be hardened. Also, for those spur of the moment projects that you want to quickly complete, it's nice to have a supply of cheap metal that doesn't break the bank if messed up.
I'm not looking to make money with my machining - I simply do not want the pressure of meeting someone else's expectations. I'm in this because I think that it is fun.
Scrapbinium is always an adventure and I say go for it. When you stumble into something that is hardened, just heat it red hot and stick it in a pile of oil dri to slowly cool down Then whittle away on it. 90% of the time hobbyists like me aren't making anything critical that requires a specific metallurgy.
Most car parts are made from the cheapest steel. And if hardenening is needed it's usually 1030-1045.
Gears from manual transmissions are usually 8620 as they are carburized .010-.020 deep.
Most car parts are made from the cheapest steel. And if hardenening is needed it's usually 1030-1045.
Gears from manual transmissions are usually 8620 as they are carburized .010-.020 deep.
dalmatiangirl61
Diamond
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2011
- Location
- BFE Nevada/San Marcos Tx
Customer walks in the door with a broken part, has no idea what steel it was made from, and the manufacturer is long gone. I ask a few questions and determine nobody is going to die if the new one breaks. Customer needs a new part asap, I can grab a chunk of mystery steel and make his part in a few hours so he is up and running, or I can order material and wait 3 days for it to arrive, guess which option the customer takes? And not all mystery steel is a mystery, I have a good quantity of aluminum SCRAP barstock with 6061 still printed on the side. I'm always on the lookout for pneumatic cylinders from a certain mfr as I know they use 316SS for the rods, and it comes in all sizes and is far cheaper than the fuel required to drive to the supply house. 99% of the parts I make are one off, I find its worth having a selection of metals in different sizes so I can grab what I need to make a part, and if I have it on hand rarely charge for material, just the machine time.
LKeithR
Stainless
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2011
- Location
- Langley, B.C.
Don't get me wrong, my brother and I ran a jobbing shop for over 50 years so I've certainly had my share of
dealing with mystery metal. I also understand the headaches it can cause, both while machining it and in the
end result. Nothing more frustrating than getting part way into a project and discovering that the material
you're using just isn't going to work.
And there's a difference between shop crops, cylinder shafting and automotive parts like axles and gear shafts.
We learned early on to be careful about marking crops--makes life a whole lot easier when the time comes to
use them for something. Cylinder shafts were usually a pretty safe bet, the only concern being whether they
were induction hardened or just chrome plated. Digging through piles of scrap auto parts was another whole
deal and something which we quickly learned to avoid because of all the potential problems...
dalmatiangirl61
Diamond
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2011
- Location
- BFE Nevada/San Marcos Tx
I rarely use automotive scrap, mainly because there is not much solid round stock on cars, and what little there is requires work to get it. Industrial scrap is another story, I find lots of round stock on machinery, bonus points if someone already took it apart and all I have to do is pick it up. When I do order spec material I always get extra and mark it, but its rarely what I need for the next job. I'd love to have a shipping container (or two)full of spec material in every size possible, but that is just a fantasy.
john.k
Diamond
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2012
- Location
- Brisbane Qld Australia
I found 9" Ford axles to be nice and soft and easy to machine....in contrast,axles from an IH pickup of 1965 vintage were as hard and tough as anything Id ever encountered .......My advice to a bginner with a small lathe,is to buy some free machining steel,and use that......I use truck axles if I want drawbar pins or something like that ,and either cut with a carbide bandsw,or with the oxy..........Bronze is the stuff thats worth using salvage due to cost......to be cont.....
john.k
Diamond
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2012
- Location
- Brisbane Qld Australia
The best salvage you will ever find is the bronze planetary pins from a 2speed Eaton diff.....bronze costs a fortune to buy even offcuts,yet in a #4 Eaton,is maybe 20 lbs of bronze bar ,the best bronze money can buy.
1yesca
Stainless
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2004
that reminds me of a guy at city collage 20 years ago the instructor ask him what was the steel he had in the lathe ? his reply haboche [bbq] steel . so what is haboche steel? the instructor ask the students reply well i work on bob cats and i take the old pivot pins and run them in my hoboche to soften them up . now whether it worked or not i can't say as i never turned any of it .
4GSR
Diamond
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2005
- Location
- Victoria, Texas, USA
Growing up, I didn't have much choice what material to use, unless I went and bought it from the supply store near us. Most was customer supplied. All the rest was "free" metal or what we called "core stock". The material left from trepanning a hole in a steel bar. Most all of it started out as 41xx grade in the 28-36 HRC hardness range. The cores would range up to around 30 HRC depending on the size of the bar it came from. We made lots of parts from this material over the years, don't recall anyone coming back saying they had failure with the parts we made for them. Now days, you have to pay for this material when it is available.
jmm03
Hot Rolled
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2004
- Location
- ventura,ca.usa
old computer plotter type printers have a lot of good shafts and parts in them for the hobbiest also...
