2nd Q. Is the impregnated brown paper that used to be packaged with steel tools etc to prevent rust still available? what is it called and where can I buy it?
Don
Dunno about welding FC steel, but I have always known paper as VPI (vapour phase inhibitor) although it is also sold as VCI paper. Ken Whiston used to sell it but he is no more. Google for vendors. HTH
Bob
"Seen my cat for this and that"
I've still got one somewhere!
Bob
dunno about brown paper but the free cutting steel is nigh impossible to weld conventionally - ie stick, mig, tig and gas. In a previous lifetime I was 'the boy' in an engineering company welding shop and would often be asked by a red faced machinist if I could just blob up a hole in a large flange or a through hole that should have been decidedly blind only to find that the component was made out of En1a or someting equally horrible. Given that this was nearly 30 years ago you'll forgive me being a bit vague on the details, but as I understand it, when you melt the freecutting steel the lead is actually vapourised out of the alloy and causes very poor joints which are porous. You can braize or bronze weld it - brass filler, as the steel isn't melted.
You should be able to friction weld it - which is feasible if you have small components and can mount them up in a lathe - something a bit bigger than a Myford may be required :o)
What is it you are tring to do ??
regards
Dudley
Total rubbish.In an earlier post on another subject I spoke about machining eight tonnes of 40mm dia steel every week of life.That steel was EN1A free-cutting.The bits I made were castor bosses for shopping trolleys and every trolley had four of the parts mig welded on. You may have bother welding EN1APB which has lead added to make it even more free-cutting as the lead creates nodes in the weld. Mark.
As others have indicated, the lead (and tellurium) containing versions don't make good welds. but there are non-leaded versions. If you buy from a decent steel stockholder (Macready's, Smiths, etc), They'll know what to sell you. If you buy from the typical model engineering suppliers you (and they) probably won't know what it is.
Chronos have it. Search for RH1 or RH10 on
Regards Mark Rand RTFM
Total rubbish.In an earlier post on another subject I spoke about machining eight tonnes of 40mm dia steel every week of life.That steel was EN1A free-cutting.The bits I made were castor bosses for shopping trolleys and every trolley had four of the parts mig welded on.
Mark.
----------------------------------------------------------- Well now Mark. Have we finally found the man responsible for the fact that every damn supermarket trolley in the country either crabs sideways or wobbles uncontrollably on a zig-zag course?
Cliff Coggin.
That`s my fault entirely Cliff. :-) Unfortunately I was only responsible for the Buko ones.They could when pushed produce 13500 trolley bases a week.There were other ones which had a knurled insert pressed and crimped into the end of the tube.We did them too. There are no trolley manufacturers producing in the UK now.There used to be two large ones. These castor pads were only a very small part of our business with Buko.Badly missed. Mark.
EN1A PB it must have been then
The stuff we used to get was unweldable - well we were vacuum engineers and you certainly couldn't get a weld on it that was vaccum tight and I wouldn't have wanted to put any great load on a welded joint.
Many thanks to all for the useful information. Regards Don
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