Weapons-Grade 6061?

It exists and i have a whole bunch of it. For Gulf War #2, the miltary came to my son's workpace with a special rush project. They needed a couple dozen special parts to attach something to their large cargo plane. All hush hush and rush rush. Anyway, the military supplied four inch thick four foot wide by thirty feet long slabs of military grade AL. Had it rush shipped in. "The Kid" wrote the CNC program and sat by the bridge mill sixteen hours a day for two weeks.

Anyway, there were huge scrap pieces. They had to go someplace. My grove made sence. I've made a few parts. It machines chips more like steel, not stringy gummy like other AL. The kid told me the tension spec was far higher than other AL.

Karl

Karl

I sort of remember a TV show about making deep sea hard shell suit.

The body of the shell was milled from a solid slab of 6061 - that had been compressed.

A HUGE press smashed a 8 foot tall billet down to 5 feet.

Dunno what grade that would be called, but it had to be denser.

Richard

That was a great joke!

============ Only if its billet.

I agree.

Harold

Yet another term that is used to death. It's all billet, aside from castings. Even they are cast.

Harold

I saw that show. It doesn't make it denser but it does improve the mechanical properties. Forge it first then they mill it to specs. They use it to make wheels too among other things. On the show the way they shot it did make it look smaller. Karl

Very likely it's just reinforced metal composite. They put ceramic whiskers and a variety of other things in there to get higher tensile strength, heat tolerance, and, most noticeably, greater stiffness. It has a variety of defense and aerospace uses.

Sometimes it's a bear to machine; other varieties machine just like regular aluminum grades, but they typically knock the edges off your tools in a hurry.

As for the gadget that Spehro pointed to, ho-ho, ha-ha.

"Ergonomic", yet, on top of "weapons grade". I suppose that was next in the buzz phrase generator's list. 6061 was used at one time in AR forgings, 7075 is more common these days.

Stan