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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...
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...
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.
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.
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