Turning Hr Steel

It's unfortunate that finding good quality steel to make things out of is out of reach to most of us. And the "quick" resource is to run to the local box store pay triple the price for a piece of steel bar that winds up having poor machinability rating compared to other steels out there. Most of us do this and live with it. Few places have steel service centers set up to sell material to us H-M, an most of them are not open on weekends or after 5:00pm during the week. I have had good luck buying short lengths of material from places like Speedy Metals, but plan on spending $100-150 in order to justify shipping charges. Here's how I buy from Speedy Metals, I buy B1117 grade material in four foot lengths. I select diameters like 1/4", 5/16", 3/8", 1/2", 5/8", 3/4", 7/8", and 1". This will come up to around $75-85. Shipping will be around $25 for this bundle of material. It will probably last my lifetime but will come handy when needed. Since I bought this bundle of stock, I've added 1-1/4" and 1-1/2" to the bundle. I have a lot more material than this on hand that I've collected over the years. Some of it is left over from dad's shop when he was alive. And if anyone needs a small chunk of material and can't afford to buy it, let me know. I'll check and see if I have it on hand. Most of the time I only ask you pay for shipping and make a small donation to H-M. Ken

BTW- I now have chunks of G-2 cast iron on hand that can be sliced up for making back plates for chucks.
 
So much great info!

I made some changes in the way I was doing things based on these replies and was able to get a good shiny finish on a piece of 1" A36 w/ minimal filing and sanding.

Thanks for sharing your time and knowledge.
Aaron

I found a local shop that says "help yourself to anything in the metal dumpster" and even has a couple of pallets inside with better smaller pieces of good metal that is not off limits. I make sure to bring them donuts for their Monday morning meeting every couple of weeks
 
I have two 4 jaw chucks that need back-plates for my lathe. I just started making one for the 8" chuck out of mild steel. Is this going to be OK? I also have a 10" that I want to make a back-plate for after I do the smaller one. My lathe has a threaded 2 1/4" 4 TPI spindle. I made a stub spindle as a test piece for when I start internal threading.

Ken I'm interested in that cast iron you mentioned. Would it be large enough for the 10"? The threaded portion is about 2 1/8" long
 
QUOTE Wreck
Can't help you if you are using HSS tooling as I haven't run a turning job with it in 30 years.

My 1920 Springfield Ideal Lathe came with about 2 gallons of carbide tooling, many with the coating still on them. Much other tooling also. I told my wife "I can hardly think of anything more to buy". That doesn't mean I'm not trying and succeeding. :)
 
[QUOTE="AGCB97, post: 405780, member: 41855"

I found a local shop that says "help yourself to anything in the metal dumpster" and even has a couple of pallets inside with better smaller pieces of good metal that is not off limits. I make sure to bring them donuts for their Monday morning meeting every couple of weeks[/QUOTE

Excellent way to go, we probably scrap 600-800 pounds of aluminum per month, rounds, flats and cast jig plate such as MIC 6, also a good deal of 304 SS which is of course much heavier. My employer would sell you pretty much any drop for $10.00 if you walked in the door and asked nicely, if you were very nice he would probably give it to you for free.

When you walk into a working machine shop no one there is interested in your hobby project and could do without a detailed history.
This is not to disparage hobbyist projects at all, everyone that works there has a job to finish however so they will not hold your hand.

In order to get drops from working machine shops ask for material in whole inches, if you say that you need 1 7/16 cold rolled round because you make Artisan didgeridoo's the owner is likely to toss toss your pretentious butt right out of the building. If on the other hand you had merely asked for 1 1/2" CR bar he may just give you 10 feet of it just to get it off of the floor.
 
AGCB97 said:
Ken I'm interested in that cast iron you mentioned. Would it be large enough for the 10"? The threaded portion is about 2 1/8" long
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Probably not. The material I have on hand is 6-1/2" OD. Let me know what OD you need and length and I'll see what I can get my hands on.
 
4gsr said:
Probably not. The material I have on hand is 6-1/2" OD. Let me know what OD you need and length and I'll see what I can get my hands on.
Click to expand...

The total diameter of the chuck is 10 1/4". The videos I've watched make the back-plate the full diameter of the chuck. I'm not sure of the reason for this since it doesn't seem that will add any rigidity to the chuck since it is already heavy cast.

The recess on the back of this chuck is 5 9/16" and the boss around that recess is about 6 1/4". Would not a back-plate that just covered the boss and fit the recess be good enough? That is where the mount holes are. This would simplify the project greatly.
 
Yep! The back plate just needs to large enough to fit the counter bore on back of the chuck. Also big enough to provide holes for the socket head cap screws to go into. This applies to most 4-jaw chucks. Most 3-jaw chucks require a backplate the same OD as the chuck, since the bolt holes are on the outer rim of the chuck. I've seen a few 3-jaw chucks that have bolt holes located in the counter bore of the chuck. So it just depends on the chuck you are needing to make a back plate for. If you like a piece of the cast iron I have, PM me for details.
 
Ken, I wish I had seen your offer before about 9:00 pm last night. I just ordered a couple short lengths of hex stock 304 SS from eBay because it was the cheapest way to get what I needed to make a replacement part for my lathe (the movable shaft thing for one of the change gears). I didn't actually want to make it out of SS, but the only other options I could find for less than $20 after shipping were 360 brass and 6061 aluminum. I guess I need to learn to turn stainless at some point, so why not while I can't get a fine feed? :)

I'll definitely keep your offer in mind in the future. It's very generous and helpful of you.
 
Not to derail this thread but a bit of insight into making parts for a living.
Fridays parts
smallparts1_zpsyd0tflb7.jpg

12 MM diameters made in an 8" chucker lathe

Mondays part.
12" X 10 " X 5" with a 5.187 +.005 - 0.000 bore made in a Tos 24" X 100" lathe in a 4-jaw chuck, a rod end for a hydraulic cylinder.

The milled blank weighs 150 Lb's. What a difference a weekend makes.
rodend_zpsifcmmir8.jpg
 
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