Valve stem material?
I am thinking about making a new valve stem, what is the best material to use?
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any drill rod can be softend , even very hard stuff, just requires you to heat red hot and maintain for about 3-5 seconds , then place in a hot oven ( wait til your girl is cookin somthing ,she’l love putting stell in the oven with food ).
it will soften easy , it just needs to maintain a very slow cool down ,
heating it to long will burn the carbon out and skrew it , so don’t over heat .
i like to machine freemachining steel better than any other metal….the stainless need a sharb bit…but then your set
aluminium, cold welds easy…i hate it…especially on the minilathe where the no real good way of setting up a coolant system….i use alot cutting oil…but it still happen…dont mind when its a cutting bit that it welds to that can just get resharpened….but drills….those can be a bit tricky….or endmills for that sake
drillrod is a good idea…i have used the shank of drillbits too….factories usually dont harden the shank so it can actually be worked….but do test wether its doable closer to the flutes…i had one bit made up…just need to cut the flutes off and then do some slight work at that end…turned out the harder than anything …had to just give up
There are different grades of SS. Im never sure exactly what grade Im getting as I buy a bunch out of a scrap bin down at my metal supply store. It all machines much better than the scrap cold or hot rolled scrap steel that I buy. Almost as nice as ali to work with you just cant take as deep a cut.
Whats stainless steel like to work in a small lathe like mine.
all mine are made from drill rod . it is about the same price as stainless , but when hardend is 5x stronger ( can be brital if hardened wrong), it will not rust easy once hardend .
just use heat to harden, make red hot and dip in water . then reheat to just befor it starts to go orange ( or just heat the end that need hardess and dip). . it’s great stuff . if you have a old drill bit the shank will work well .
stainless steel is best…but honestly you can use free machine steel too…i use something they call welding iron i think….
trouble is that steel will rust…so stainless is best…but in a valve that sees action the rust is really minimal…and you can blue it to help prevent rust
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I think I am going to give Free cutting Stainless Steel a try. A mate of mine that used to make scale steam trains, the type you sit on, is going to look out for me.