Stocking up (for me). Order came to just over 600 pounds. A little less than 3.40 per pound delivery included. For more reasons than one I wish I could order this quantity every time I need aluminum. That's what you guys on the other side of the pond would call aluminium.
Mr. Small Potatoes here , I just ordered some 2" round stock . A whole foot of it for probably a lot more per lb than you . It's going to become some "reducer sleeves" to reduce the bore diameters of a Holley Sniper EFI throttle body . The mechanic's theory is blah de de blah blah . I don't know , I just do what the customer asks if I can and it doesn't break the law .
Mr. Small Potatoes here , I just ordered some 2" round stock . A whole foot of it for probably a lot more per lb than you . It's going to become some "reducer sleeves" to reduce the bore diameters of a Holley Sniper EFI throttle body . The mechanic's theory is blah de de blah blah . I don't know , I just do what the customer asks if I can and it doesn't break the law .
After I moved back to the UK from the US my local engineering supplier said they could get me aluminum if I wanted it but it would be much more expensive as it had to be shipped in the from the US ;) , I opted for the local aluminium they could offer instead. Here we pay for aluminium in pounds as well.
After I moved back to the UK from the US my local engineering supplier said they could get me aluminum if I wanted it but it would be much more expensive as it had to be shipped in the from the US ;) , I opted for the local aluminium they could offer instead. Here we pay for aluminium in pounds as well.
--------------------------- How many pounds per pound?
I never understood farthings, shillings, florins or crowns, though I know enough Latin to get denarius and libra.
Alumuminimum
I need to get myself a spot welder... one of these days.
I had not bought anything from this vendor in over a year. They no longer had a regular truck coming by, so I quit buying from them. It would take a full day off during the week, and a fair amount in fuel to go get material from them. I figured I'd need to buy about 12-1400lbs at a shot to make it worth while.
On a gamble I contacted one of their sales people to see if they would ship pieces common carrier, and I discovered they are running a truck again. I also discovered that one of the local metal yards had lied to me about how much aluminum they are buying. They had told me I was about the only one who bought aluminum from them. Turns out they were the ones purchasing enough to bring the regular truck back to town. They also lied to me about cost/pricing. I know what I paid, and if they are buying more than double that amount on a truck load. They ARE paying less than I am.
For the last year 99% of my aluminum had been coming cut in half on a Fed-Ex or UPS truck. I bought a couple pieces fromt he local metal yard at crazy prices, but avoided them because it was usually (always) cheaper to ship.
I will say pricing really surprised me. Their price adjustment per unit was rather granular. For example the difference between one stick of
1/2 x 6 and 4 pieces of 1/2 by 6 was about $50. (My local yard wouldn't offer a penny even if I offered to buy every piece they had on hand) When I sent over a bigger quote request everything was priced similarly or cheaper, and even an increase of one piece made a difference in price. I'd never experienced that before with this vendor, but I was dealing with a different sales rep. Midwest is like that, but they are absolutely terrible about shipping. If I order something from them it might ship in two weeks (the fastest they ship) or it might not ship for several months, and you have to ask before you order how long it will take. They will not tell you otherwise. In the past Midwest has always had the best price on the worst service. My old vendor was comparable in price with Midwest for the first time ever, and the delivery charge is zero. The best part. They had EVERYTHING I wanted in stock.I'm not going to name them just yet. It seems every time I brag up a vendor something goes south.
I need to get myself a spot welder... one of these days.
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I thought I need one for car rust repairs underneath, on seams where two flanged pieces join a vertical one, like |
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The verticals are the inner side walls of the hatch compartment, the inner horizontals with downward flanged edges its floor. It turned out to be easier and maybe better to bolt the repair panel joints together over caulking. Stainless bolts and Nylok nuts. Water had entered somehow and rusted its way out the bottom, between the layers.
I think the water entry points were guide pin holes in the D pillars for the tail lights. I piled grease on the pins and screws before reinstalling the assemblies. If that isn't the fix I can open up the repair to redo it.
Recently I caught a milder second case of RSV and a more serious one of Lackawanna, despite a cloth mask, so other projects like spotwelding coin cells for laptop CMOS replacements went on hold. The spotwelder timer I built works on 120V or 240V and the welder can run from a Variac to further reduce the power, hopefully to battery tab level. 120V for 0.2-0.3 seconds was good for the 22 gauge galvy. The only mod to the spotwelder for this is a sheetmetal hook that can hold the manual switch closed. I was tempted to use an On-Off-Mom switch but the accident potential is high. The HF is a cheaply made ripoff of a 240V Miller.
But you probably used 10-penny nails, from a box marked "10 d" without a second thought.
But you probably used 10-penny nails, from a box marked "10 d" without a second thought. Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
--------------------------------- I would have when young, before studying Latin. Since then I pay attention to measurement systems, their names and histories. For instance metal gauges are the number of times a wire passed through a die or sheet metal through rollers. Steel plate may be listed by its weight in pounds per square foot, which is useful to track displacement and balance in shipbuilding. 1" thick is rounded from ~41 down to 40 pounds for ease of calculation. Aircraft engineering dispensed with gauges and measured aluminum in thousandths and tubing in 16ths, the AN- system.
But you probably used 10-penny nails, from a box marked "10 d" without a second thought. Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
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You also have "Long Ton" of 2240 Lbs or 20 Hundredweight.
My anvil was stamped 0 1 8 in the Stone age. It was plainly of a useful size to someone long ago, and still is for me.
Same here.
So it's a small anvil, even smaller than the typical farrier's anvil. Hundred-weights/quarters of cwt/odd pounds = 36 pounds. My Peter Wright is a 2 2 25. The Hill I gave to my son is a 1 1 4, my first anvil bought from a drunken junkyard guy in '67.
In the era of hand-forged nails, a good nailer could make 100 nails in an hour. In 1976, I met a blacksmith [1] who ran a smithing school where he instructed novices:
the notion being that by the time the learner had made 100 good nails in an hour, [s]he knew how to use a hammer and could go on to other challenges/tasks.
An interesting aside: in England in (I think) the 18th c. many nailers were women. Great strength to wield a heavy hammer not needed (for small- to medium-sized nails) but manual deftness, a good eye and willingness to endure tedium were assets. Even in the 19th c. some people leaving New England for the California gold rush burned their houses so's to collect the nails. Nails were a big deal.
[1] Slim Spurling. Later abandoned blacksmithing to devise widgets to manipulate subtle cosmic energies.
So it's a small anvil, even smaller than the typical farrier's anvil. Hundred-weights/quarters of cwt/odd pounds = 36 pounds. My Peter Wright is a 2 2 25. The Hill I gave to my son is a 1 1 4, my first anvil bought from a drunken junkyard guy in '67.
In the era of hand-forged nails, a good nailer could make 100 nails in an hour.
--------------------------- I wasn't the first around here to seek old smithing tools for use instead of decoration. Large anvils and portable forges were gone from the antique/scrap shops and I was lucky to find a box of tongs, a good leg vise and variable speed electric blower. The anvil was in a friend's garage. They were a family of lawyers, not craftsmen, and let me have it, especially since my name was on it "WILKIN..", the "SON" lost in a low area. It lacks the crossroads stamp.
I don't know which craft that size anvil was intended for, perhaps a copper or tinsmith. Outside of blacksmithing a lot of thin steel is bent cold, for which my anvil serves well. My training on bend radii and allowances was all for cold bending on a brake. I've read that armour was mostly shaped cold, retaining its work-hardening, and tinned or galvanized sheet has to be. I made a closely fitted costume helmet from stainless without heating it and losing the luster.
The blacksmith at a county fair was making small items on demand so I asked to see a chain link. Turns out he had made lots of large link 3/8" chain for ox pulling and he whipped one out in maybe 2 minutes, on a bending jig. The skill with which he scarfed the ends for the weld with a single blow to each told how much he'd done before. I noticed that he rolled the hammer a little as it struck to round the scarf surface, which he said few people would catch.
I've examined this chain and am very glad I didn't have to swing a hammer to help forge it. Some of the more rusted links plainly show the slag layer grain of wrought iron.
I've seen hundred wt mentioned before, but only in reference to anvils. I follow a few black smith channels on YouTube when I need my fix of mind numbing video blather. Alec Steel, Will Stelter, Black Bear Forge, Daniel Moss (no longer making videos I believe), and a few others. I used to follow Essential Craftsman, but he has been doing house building and other contractor based stuff lately drowning out his black smith content.
I've seen hundred wt mentioned before, but only in reference to anvils. I follow a few black smith channels on YouTube when I need my fix of mind numbing video blather. Alec Steel, Will Stelter, Black Bear Forge, Daniel Moss (no longer making videos I believe), and a few others. I used to follow Essential Craftsman, but he has been doing house building and other contractor based stuff lately drowning out his black smith content. Bob La Londe
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I think I explain things best in mostly text with embedded sketches, photos and brief videos. Except for the videos that's how I wrote the paper operators manuals for equipment I'd designed. It's significant that a moviemaker can describe his work in only words although he tells stories in images - derived from the author's word descriptions. Arthur Clarke's book for 2001 tells the story much better than Kubrick's nevertheless brilliant movie.
Hundredweight is part of the Stone system Brits use for body weight. Eight Stone is one Hundredweight, 8 * 14 = 112.
I collected and read a few books on blacksmith toolmaking and then took a class in it. It's obvious that a critical element is muscle memory learned from practice, the hammer makes what you don't want at least as easily as what you do. I concluded that smithing is a good way to make artsy stuff I have no talent for, while welding on and machining away would serve me better to make repair and custom parts.
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