| From: | "alanwhittaker-at-mindspring.com" <alanwhittaker-at-mindspring.com> |
| Subject: | RE: aluminum casting question [TANKS] |
| Date: | Sun, 2 Apr 2006 07:25:34 -0700 |
| Reply-To: | tanks-at-rctankcombat.com |
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If you are looking for good aluminum for casting, check out any machine shops in your area. They recycle the aluminum and we always had a barrel that we put the solid pieces in (the chips were kept separate from the solids because they are not worth as much). The company that comes around and picks up the chips and solids pays less than 40 cents per pound for solids, so 10 pounds of 6061 T6 should cost you around $4.00 - but show the owner your tank plans and I wouldn't be surprised if he gave you some solids for free - that's how I got the slugs that I am going to machine my turrets from. http://home.mindspring.com/~alanwhittaker/id6.html .
Smaller shops will probably have a good selection of small solids (easier to melt). I got those huge slugs from a big shop that does large parts for the semiconductor industry here in the SF Bay Area.
Don't use chips - they will have a lot of coolant (oily) on them and will probably give you problems with slag and quality.
Alan
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