problem sourcing steel in Seattle

Summerville Steel in Kent is where you should go. They specialize in tool steels and alloy steels. They are on West Valley Hwy, about 1/2 mile south of Home Depot. Basically 1 mile west and a little north of Specialty Metals.

You have to understand that NOBODY is maintaining a large inventory right now. Anybody caught holding a large inventory when the prices drop in the steel market is instantly bankrupt. Larger orders are being ordered directly from the mills.

How big a chunk of steel do you need? I have some Stuff.

Gunner

"In my humble opinion, the petty carping levied against Bush by the Democrats proves again, it is better to have your eye plucked out by an eagle than to be nibbled to death by ducks." - Norman Liebmann

Thanks for the offer! I am going to try Ernie's suggestion of Summerville Steel in Kent first and see what they have.

Now I am wondering if Stressproof 1144 might not be an ideal candidate for this piece if they have it in stock? I could get by without heat treating it then...

Oh, the size chunk...I was thinking about 1.5" thick by 6" by 7". I want to machine dovetail ways for the hardinge bed on the bottom, and dovetail ways on the top for the cross slide. I was thinking of making it a bit wider than the existing lock-down compound that is about 4" wide. The 7" length is so I can have overhang room to allow a ballscrew nut to be attached. My plan is to make little aluminum 1" wide dovetail clamps at each end of the bed to hold bearings for this ballscrew and to hold a dc servo motor. Of course this means it will be a pain if you need to remove the tailstock, but it will give me threading, longitudinal powerfeed, and the ability to turn down about a 12-13" part between centers. I think I can do everything without modifying the lathe bed or casting.

It won't be an omniturn, but hopefully it should be better than a harbor freight

Rick

Thanks Ernie! Going to go there today!

By the way, I still plan on taking your welding course(s) one day. My friend took them and now welds everything in sight. :-)

Rick

I can probably get you some P20. However just about any steel will work for your application including (uhg!) CRC or HRS.

Are you doing this simply as an exercise, or because you are unable to find a proper cross slide? I may..may be able to help on the latter. Alsosomething to consider..rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, why not make a simple base plate and stick on the cross slide/compound from another lathe? Find a clapped out old Atlas or Southbend, remove the apron, and bolt to a base plate with the way dovetail cut into it. Ive seen many of them.

Unless you do a CNC conversion, you will never get a consistant thread out of your project. This is a DV-59, right?

Gunner

"In my humble opinion, the petty carping levied against Bush by the Democrats proves again, it is better to have your eye plucked out by an eagle than to be nibbled to death by ducks." - Norman Liebmann

Stressproof is not made in flat bar. The drawing process used apparently precludes its manufacture.

Harold

Hopefully that is a good thing.

Woot! Today was soooo much better than yesterday. Got to Summerville steel this morning and they had quite a bit of 4140 and 4340 rems in various thicknesses up to 2" for $0.40 a pound. Everything is nicely color coded. The guys there were so incredibly nice. I got 105 lbs of 4140 and 4340 including two perfect pieces 1.5" x 6" x 8" and 2" x 6" x 9". While I was grabbing this, one of the guys said, "Hey, I will just give you some of these A2 and S7 tool steel rems for you to try out" and proceeded to load a large cardboard box with another 100lbs of various rectangles and rounds. I was a bit overwhelmed but said thanks quite a bit. Sometimes you just meet the nicest people.

Well, then I headed over to Boeing Surplus, smug in the knowledge that I didn't need to scrounge in their yard for the three or four oddball size pieces of unknown rusty steel they may or may not have. While passing by the tool area, I noticed a very long (11 feet) wooden box. I looked inside and what did I find but a brand spankin new 9 foot long 2" diameter ground ballscrew and ballnut. It had a crossed out price of $250 and a new price of $125. It will be perfect for the large gantry mill I have been gathering parts for over the last year.

Also, it is absolutely perfect weather in Seattle today.

Rick

Thanks, but I now have several candidates in 4140 and 4340 thanks to Ernie and Summerville Steel.

This is an exercise. Note that I do have a proper cross slide already, but all it can do is be manually positioned and locked down on the dovetail way, allowing only a small section (4" or so) of the part to be machined. Still, it works for lots of things, so I am going to keep it as-is. I am making this new assembly mostly for fun. It will be cnc, at least the longitudinal axis at first. My idea on the threading is to have a 2000 cpr encoder driven off the spindle via a timing belt and have the compound servo driven by a computer that reads that encoder. This is no brainer stuff for me, it is the metalworking part that is hard. yes, this is a dv-59 with cross slide/compound and normal tailstock.

The one part I do need is the lever arm that attaches to the lathe headstock and pulls on the collet bar. That piece is missing so I have to tighten the collets by screwing and unscrewing the drawbar thing. Of course it *does* actually work doing this, but it might get annoying after awhile.

Thanks,

Rick

Yep, that is what the guys told me today at the steel place.

Thanks,

Rick

Out of curiosity, what is the meaning and origin of "Woot"? Previously, I have only seen it in attempts to exploit a (non-existent) formmail.pf in my web site. Apparently, the spammers are still trying to use those. I just checked, and 77 attempts in the past 108 days.

But those attempts spell it "w00t" (zeroes instead of the letter 'O').

Thanks, DoN.

In adventure/role playing games, people would type "wow loot!" when they came upon treasure or killed a monster. It got shortened to woot! and most people use it just to express joy or excitement.

I think it is also a hacker term for low level access to a computer.

Rick

Way cool, Rick! Some days just turn out great, don't they?

Harold

WOOT Waste of Our Time WOOT We Owned the Other Team (gaming term; less common) WOOT Wonderful Loot (Everquest gaming slang; also seen as W00T) extracted from dictionary.com acronym pages

Martin

:-) Gunner - put down the pry bar, the metal plates across the ditch cut across the road is there to keep cars out of the hole! Not machine. It's work hardened anyway.

Mart>

O.K. That is a nice and appropriate derivation.

Well ... since the superuser on unix systems has the username of "root" (though that can be changed fairly easily), so a computer which has been broken into and modification made to give the unauthorized user "root" privileges, it is said to be "rooted", and I can see how that could also be corrupted into woot (with the '0' for 'o' substitution a common part of the culture of those who like to style themselves "hackers" -- even though they are going against the *real* hacker ethic, which is a more constructive role than they are taking.

That connection was what I was sort of expecting, not the first that you gave.

Thanks, DoN.

Thanks! One (the last) is at least related to the other response.

Again, thanks, DoN.

Sigh..and I paid $5 (!!!!!!!!!!!!) for a 8" x 8" x 3/8 rem of CRS today in Pomona California. I needed it..but Ill not shop there again.....

Gunner

Confronting Liberals with the facts of reality is very much akin to clubbing baby seals. It gets boring after a while, but because Liberals are so stupid it is easy work." Steven M. Barry

Email me a picture of what you have and Ill dig through my Stuff. Ive several complete DV-59 collet closers IRRC.

Gunner

Confronting Liberals with the facts of reality is very much akin to clubbing baby seals. It gets boring after a while, but because Liberals are so stupid it is easy work." Steven M. Barry