Steel stock for newbie ???

For small sizes of steel, below 1-1/2" diameter, I buy standard 10ft lengths from commercial suppliers. Likewise I buy the standard 20ft lengths of hot rolled steel. For hot rolled it is cheaper to buy the full length than a shorter length. I also buy full 1m x 2m sheets of steel. After a number of years I've built up a good stock of steel, such that I don't need to buy much now. I mark the steel before storing, on rounds I stamp the EN number on the end.

I don't use aluminium on my traction engines, other than for fixtures. I have bought a lot of aluminium section and plate for work. Section is bought in standard 20ft lengths and plate cut to size from commercial suppliers.

Silver steel and gauge plate comes from Coventry Grinders, usually in 500mm lengths.

Cast iron, bronze and brass come from M-Machine (cut to the length I need) or Macc Models nearest standard size. I normally add a bit for fumbles. So if things go right I build up a small stock. Plastics come from a local supplier (EDP Plastics) in Cambridge.

I rarely buy material from Ebay. Usually only when it's mega expensive elsewhere, such as tungsten alloy, or I just need something for making a fixture and don't care about the machinability or finish, Such as this lump to make a former for the engine chimneys:

Andrew

+1 to that! Starting out I almost gave up because mischance led to my scrap box containing nothing but obnoxious metal! Decided my mini-lathe was rubbish because it couldn't cut metal, when given machinable metal it performed well!

Problem with scrap is many manufactured items are made of alloys specifically chosen for properties other than machinability. Cutting tools like lathes, saws, and milling machines work best with metals where the specification mentions good machinability or 'free cutting'. Manufacturing has a wide choice of metal bashing methods, and don't take home-workshop needs into consideration at all; threads are rolled not cut and grinding is much used instead of machining.

Similar issues with DIY store metal. Apart from being expensive Aluminium is too soft and steel gritty. Their Brass is on the inferior side of OK. Basically, DIY store metal isn't aimed at machinists. Don't be put off if it misbehaves.

My advice: at first avoid unknown metals like the plague. Before exploring scrap learn the ropes with free-cutting metals. Once you know what to expect from friendly metal you can tell instantly if an unknown material is causing trouble rather than the machine, blunt tool, or learner driver. Once materials are identified as 'difficult' they can often be used by changing technique, but wild guessing as a way of discovering how to proceed with them is painful. A little experience with decent metal first works wonders.

Dave

I get quite a few bits of random material from our scrap bin at work which so far have proved to be decent quality as you would expect.

But we have a twice yearly auction at our model engineering club and quite often there are materials to had for pennies, you should see my stock of cast iron, brass and aluminium bar built up over the years.

The steel obtained from the club auctions has been very dubious though, I always give each piece a trial machining before it goes into stock, I reckon around 60% of it I take to work and dump it in the scrap bin having marked it with a felt pen so I don't pick it out again later !!

Phil

As a beginner always go for free cutting steel unless your project calles for something special. You have enough to learn with everything else so give yourself a break. If you are buying small amounts (unlike Andrew) buy as you need, you only hve to think a couple of days ahead. As an aside settle on a size for hold down fixings to T slots, angle plates etc and buy a few lengths of studding that size along with a bag of nuts and washers. When I started half my time was spent making studs and the like for setups.

regards Martin

I buy stock for specific projects, plus a bit extra.

But I don't do many of those, so often find myself making smallish parts from larger material than is strictly necessary. That way, I don't need to keep lots of sizes, which is important when storage(and work!) space is a problem.

Ian, one other thing I would recommend is mark your steel or alloy materials so that you know whats what, I use paint which is a pretty standard way of doing it, however as far as I'm aware there is no standard colour range used? so just used whatever I had and made a "chart" A dab of colour on the end of the bar is all thats needed

Where I worked all Silver steel and gauge plate were marked so but the store man. colour was blue so I use the same for this.

John

My "Chart" !!!

I used a lot of scrapyard stuff in the early days, happy to whittle it down to nothing and practice turning out perfect beautiful bits of useless nothing, learning to use the machine safely and striving for effortless ribbons of swarf in anticipation of amazing future projects

still at the practicing and learning stage

A very useful thread everyone, and thanks to Ian for asking in the first place 👌🏻