Cast barbell weights - anyone tried machining these in to anything?

I keep seeing these being sold for pence at car boots and since I bought a lathe I no longer see household or building items - I just see lumps of potential stock =D

From what I gather they generally have a 1" bore and I thought (being a bit wet behind the ears) they might just make a nice flywheel or even a Myford faceplate at a pinch if they're clean and not to hard.

Does anyone have any thoughts or experience on these lumps which they'd like to share??

I have used them for flywheels, but you have to be careful as some of the casting is not always 'fine' i.e. hard spots and blowholes, they make good bases for instruments, and I stuck a small one on to my kettle base as I was fed up with the base coming up with the kettle.

I made a counterweight for my SX3 mill - it certaily makes raisng the head a lot easier now. I was inpired by this:

**LINK**

I have machined them to make faceplates for the lathe and also bases for instruments. My experience is that the cast iron is very variable. I bought a set of weights from Aldi many years ago and these machine really well with no prior treatment. I have also bought them in Tesco but these proved so hard that they were un-machinable despite grinding the surface away to remove any chilled layer. I also heated them to bright red heat for an hour and allowed them to cool in the furnace but they were still to hard.

I have also seen weights that appear to be made from resin bonded iron filings which are useless for anything except weight.

Mike

I bought a couple from Tesco, one I made into a lamp base. It turned very nicely with no hard spots and I press-fitted an aluminium bush into the hole to hold the lamp.

Regards,

John.

I have only turned the chromed hand weights - disks are about 70mm dia. maybe and they machined very nicely with no blow holes or hard nuts.

Rik

John Old Metaller has made his lamp base from one of these disks and Ikea use cast iron disks in at least one of their lamps. Wonder if anyone has made an Ikea back plate yet? I smell the whiff of mechanical inbreeding in the air!

Rik

Rik- mechanical inbreeding..?! *sound of banjo being played on the porch*

I looked at the Ikea lamp base, but decided it was as Mike says, resin-based, and would probably crumble like a ginger nut at the approach of a round-nosed tool.

My job takes me all over the rail network and, when it's safe to do so, I keep an eye out for what I call 'railway swag'. It's amazing what you find that's just been thrown down trackside twenty years ago, until I come along, that is..!

The North Lincolnshire resignalling project is getting off the ground...for me, that means lots of 4 or 5 inch ci rollers, unmachined, that are used for reducing the rolling resistance of point rodding...it would be rude not to rescue a few for the 'might come in handy' box!

Regards,

John.

Some of the weights I'v looked at seem to be off cuts of steel bar, while others look as though they are cut from hot rolled steel plate. Ian S C

One of our club members used some for his driving trolley wheels.

Edited By Bazyle on 03/06/2014 15:31:16

This really sounds good to me, I'll pick some up this weekend if the opportunity arises - thanks all for the input - and ideas =)

I have some 0.5kg ones... for some reason my stepson won't let me swap my 5kg plastic and concrete ones for his CI ones.

Neil

Report back on the 'going rate' per kg. We don't want to cause an infationary surge in demand as everyone reading the forum rushes to their nearest car boot sale.

No need to rush Bazyle - every thing comes to them as weights!

Rik

These weights have been finished turned and are destined to become the crankshaft webs for a model I have in mind. Suprisingly nice quality steel NOT cast iron.

These fine carcasses await Mr. Warco the butcher - (Evil cackle!)

Rik