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Do people need CAST IRON bars

I have sold literally hundreds of steel bars on ebay. It is a real demand item and they always sell. I cut them up on a big bandsaw into pieces that fit flat rate boxes and ship one almost every day.

But, right now I am taking apart a big CNC horizontal mill (G&L) and it has four CAST IRON bars for X and Y dimension slides.

The X bars are shown here:

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They are about 3x5 inches (did not measure) and maybe 5 feet long. The rust is minimal from just one rain.

My questions are

1) are there any uses for cast iron bricks like 3x5x10 inches long 2) Can cast iron be sawed easily 3) Can I guess in any way what kind of cast iron is that?

I think that it is a lot easier to sell sawed pieces than whole pieces.

thanks

Reply to
Ignoramus5113
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Ya' got me.

Yes. If it doesn't saw easily, stop. It's not gray cast iron.

Just call it "gray cast iron." Even if it's some kind of Meehanite, it isn't going to be white or ductile. Gray iron is generic.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

One caveat on the sawing: If these are bedways, they are likely to be flame- or induction-hardened. It will be a thick case. If you can't saw it, that's likely to be the reason.

Those cases require annealing, but you don't have to get fancy about it. You won't have to soak them.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

On 08/17/2016 5:50 PM, Ignoramus5113 wrote: ...

Serious paper weights??? :)

Always be handy on a bench as a small portable anvil or the like...

Reply to
dpb

And -- for smaller chucks and lathes, can be used to make backplates.

Typically -- it has large carbide crystals embedded in it. Even tears up an angle grinder when you try to use that to cut it.

Maybe, if kept in a hot fire, and then allowed to cool *very* slowly in a bed of ashes, it might anneal it a bit.

The case hardening mentioned a few articles back is a likely thing. You may need an angle grinder to get under the case before sawing it.

Good Luck, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

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