Swedish Iron

I have come across some lumps of 3" diameter swedish iron. I realise from google that it is fairly pure and has great magnetic properties if heated to a level I could not attain, and is used as sacrificial anodes and armatures etc. I was wondering if anyone has turned any and what it's usability in model engineering might be. Does it compare with any other metals for example. Is it too soft to be of value.

Thanks Alan

It's very soft and an absolute pig to mill in my experience. Only real application is for making magnetic polepieces.

I agree ,certainly not easy to machine very soft and stringy,I had experience of it as polepieces when converting electric typwriters into solenoid operated automatic typewriters,one solenoid for every key operated function.

I turned the cores for the solenoids on my Synchronome from Swedish Iron and they turned reasonably. As has been said it's a bit soft so I used HSS with a decent rake. We had some left over at work from our XRAY generator development. I would save it for making cores.

regrds Martin

Thankyou for your replies gentlemen very helpful.

Alan

The iron has its magnetic properties at ordinary temperatures. Where the high temperature bit comes in is that any iron will lose its magnetic properties at a high temperature. With soft iron like this, the permeability will drop at a high temperature, but it will regain it when cooled. With hard irons like permanent magnets, they will become demagnetised at a high temperature, and will remain demagnetised when they cool. The temperature this happens at is called the Curie temperature, and is the same temperature you want to attain for hardening things like silver steel, eg Cherry red, or more usefully, about the colour of a boiled carrot. This all happens because this is the temperature at which all the crystalline structure gets disrupted by the heat. It is not really a difficult temperature to reach, a propane torch will do it nicely.

John