The Shop > Metal Stuff
Aluminum Copper Alloy Experiment
Manxmodder:
Very interesting, Steve. It's great to see this works so easily.
Alloying your own metals is a really useful discipline to learn,I've noted this for some future trials of my own.
.....OZ.
vtsteam:
Thanks Oz! :beer:
NormanV:
I followed this post with interest and filed it away in my memory for later use.
Now is the time! I require some material that is harder wearing than the normal alloy that I get from old wheels and thought that adding copper might do the trick. Today I melted one of my 2kg ingots and as it started to melt I added 100grammes of 20g copper wire. It took about 15 mins for the copper to completely melt and I poured it into a metal mould to produce a stick of alloy 50x25x300mm.
I read of Steve's tests of heat treating and that appears the way to go. Should I heat treat it before machining or after? I will be using HSS tools.
Norman
NormanV:
I've just removed it from the mould. I have to say I was quite worried about how easily it would come out as my welding isn't up to much. I did make sure that there was draft on it but there were small gaps in the corners. I was worried that the aluminium would mould itself into it and be impossible to remove. I used polyfilla to seal the corners and much to my delight it worked perfectly. The metal fell out of the mould when I inverted it.
awemawson:
You will find that it is a bit 'gummy' to machine annealed. Be aware that it will age harden as well as work harden.
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