Nobody locally.? Nearest two cities are 60-90 minutes away in opposite directions.

I'm sure somebody there sells steel, but finding one that's open to the public, will sell small quantities, and is open on Saturdays is a pretty slim chance.

I do know of a guy who welds and just hung a sign saying metal sales.? He's about 45 minutes away and I don't know if he's open on Saturdays.? I suspect he's selling more structural-type steel but it might be worth seeing if he carries what I need or can maybe get it.

We live in the sticks.? It's beautiful, but there's not much industry.

On Tuesday, March 19th, 2024 at 8:48 PM, mike allen <animal@...> wrote:

A36 is some tougher to machine than 1018 .DO you have any steel sellers in yer area ?

animal

On 3/19/24 5:44 PM, chrisser via groups.io wrote:

I tend to machine whatever I have on hand or can scrounge.

I'd like to make a riser block to replace the compound slide. I figure something like a 2x2x2 cube of steel would be pretty close - I just got a 4-jaw chuck so I should be able to machine it to size on the lathe.

But I have nothing like that lying around. Went on ebay and didn't find much.

Started looking at the online metals places. Cube like that is pretty reasonably priced although the shipping tends to be high. If I'm going to fork out that cash to a specialty place, I figure I should know what I'm getting.

One of the options is 1018 cold rolled. Seems like a good choice.

A36 is a bit cheaper but just barely.

Some other sites list other steel alloys. Is 1018 reasonably machineable? Is there something else I should be looking for?