Thick Stainless steel offcuts wanted

[awemawson]

I'm looking for some thickish (20mm upwards) slabs of stainless steel to make one off jigs and fixtures on my Wire EDM - need to be stainless as it rusts everything in sight! Sizes not too critical but 50mm x 100mm x 20 or 25 upwards would be very handy. No local scrapies let us wander, and local fabricators only use thin stuff . Anyone work with those sorts of thicknesses?


(Mods - not sure which forum this should be in - feel free to move it)

 

[chunkolini]

Cant help but curious, what is a 'wire EDM'

 

[Welderpaul]

Tried Metal Supermarkets?

 

[awemawson]

Cant help but curious, what is a 'wire EDM'

Imagine a sophisticated band saw, computer controlled, where the 'blade' is actually a hard brass wire 0.25mm diam, that runs slowly off a feed spool, and onto a waste spool, as it's scrap when used. The wire carries a computer controlled voltage and current that form a spark discharge to the material being cut. Material is eroded away, and flushed with a de-ionised water jet. The wire can be positioned very accurately and can produce intricate shapes to an accuracy of 5 microns. Although the process is very slow (we are talking a few millimetres a minute, it can cut through extremely hard materials such as tool steel or even carbide. Originally developed for the tool and die manufacturers I was using it today for instance to cut internal splines on a hub on the power output shaft on a Kubota diesel engine powering a grass mower ! Mine will do up to 200mm thick, and 500 x 300 mm if you could lift a slab of tool steel that size !

 

[awemawson]

Tried Metal Supermarkets?

Now Paul, you're a Yorkshire man like me - have you SEEN their prices!

 

[Shox Dr]

How fast does it use the wire? Is it expensive?

 

[awemawson]

How fast does it use the wire? Is it expensive?

The wire is about £9 per kg - feed rate is variable dependant on the thickness of the material but ranges from 0.5 to 10 metres per minute. An 8 kg spool holds about 14,500 metres and I'm still on my first one - but I am only playing

 

[Seano]

Just watched a video on this technique, never seen this before..... not even close tolerance work....MUCH, absolutely mind boggling and I though cnc work was tight....one of those in the shed and the possibilities would be endless.....

 

[Ducky]

Sounds like a nifty piece of kit (couldn't help checking out some YouTube videos cos I'm curious also)

 

[chunkolini]

I have a bunch of offcuts from this process.
Mind boggling, they are about three inches thick and have perfect 90 degree corners and super tight radiuses. I did have a set of geared teeth off a stair lift that were cut with them. Used them as teeth in a sculpture.
Linky to video? I would like to see it in practice.

 

[welshpug]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBueWfzb7P0

that's one

 

[madkayaker]

That looks really good fun!

 

[awemawson]

Perhaps I should start selling tickets! Maybe sell ice creams in the breaks!

 

[Shox Dr]

Will only cut ferrous metals?

 

[awemawson]

It'll cut anything that conducts electricity and is eroded by the spark. So all metals, carbide inserts, graphite

 

[Pete.]

I'll keep my eye out. You asked too late - I scrapped at least a dozen foot-square pieces last year for a pittance.

 

[awemawson]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBueWfzb7P0

that's one

This is very smilar to mine - this is a model 'L' mine is an 'M' :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prRrufftAtE