Where to buy soft iron in europe

[Joe Gwinn]

Thank you everybody for your help! I've found some small metalworking company around here and I'm going to ask them.

I've also found a supplier of black iron and zink plated iron in 1.5mm bars. Would zink plated iron or black iron do the trick?

Probably - it isn't all that critical. More important is to use an alloy that is a commodity that can be bought in small quantities from multiple sources, so your recipe won't be undermined by sudden inability to buy more of the alloy you tuned your recipe to.

[Alberto]

Probably - it isn't all that critical. More important is to use an alloy that is a commodity that can be bought in small quantities from multiple sources, so your recipe won't be undermined by sudden inability to buy more of the alloy you tuned your recipe to.

Thank you, Joe. I'll try it out and see what I can do with it.

[Alberto]

They just sent me the chemical composition: iron with 0.05% to 0.08% of carbon, 0.4%-0.5% Manganese, 0.05%-0.08% Sulfure. It should work great! Thanks to all.

[Jason Rodgers]

I was at Ace this evening looking through the hardware section and noticed steel dowel pins in a variety of diameters and lengths. Heck, they're even beveled and look like unpolished slugs.

A quick search shows that these are most typically "hardened alloy steel." Wikipedia tells me this means low carbon steel alloyed with any number of other metals like aluminum, boron, cobalt, molybdenum, nickel, tungsten to add particular working properties.

At $.38 a piece, I'd give em a try.

[David King]

You'd be even better off starting with malleable iron rivets which are still sold in some hardware stores (Winks) or can be easily ordered in a wide variety of diameters and lengths. These were very widely used in construction, fabrication and shipbuilding.

[Joe Gwinn]

I was at Ace this evening looking through the hardware section and noticed steel dowel pins in a variety of diameters and lengths. Heck, they're even beveled and look like unpolished slugs.

A quick search shows that these are most typically "hardened alloy steel." Wikipedia tells me this means low carbon steel alloyed with any number of other metals like aluminum, boron, cobalt, molybdenum, nickel, tungsten to add particular working properties.

The term "alloy steel" includes all alloys of iron and carbon, and does not require anything else, although they may be present, along for the ride, so one cannot tell from the name. It appears that AISI 4037 alloy is what is used: What's dowel pins and shafts(stainless chrome)steel metal brass,WC? Where's dowels(hole,Section) and pins MANUFACTURER? How to buy precision hardened pins?.

At $0.38 a piece, I'd give em a try.

Yep. And you can anneal them to change their sound.

[Beef Coon]

.... And you can anneal them to change their sound.

Could you add to your comment about annealing, or point me to a thread that may have more info if you know of one. I'd be interested in annealing some steel parts. Thanks.

[J M Fahey]

**Basically** that means heating parts red hot and letting them cool **sssllllooooooooowwwwwwllllllyyyyyyyy".

If you have a coal powered furnace, it's relatively easy: you heat parts red hot, stop blowing air and adding coal, cover parts in a lot of ash and "forget" about them overnight.

Or if a gas or electric powered oven, you just cut gas/electricity off, close the doors and wait a few hours/

If neither available, a common trick is to place parts on a thick plate of iron, heat the whole shebang with a gas torch (with small parts even a plumber's torch works) , remove torch and cover parts and plate with a piece of asbestos (it should also be sitting on some asbestos) .

As you see, the main idea is slow cooling, the opposite of tempering.

[SpareRibs]

Could you add to your comment about annealing, or point me to a thread that may have more info if you know of one. I'd be interested in annealing some steel parts. Thanks.

Hello,
The way it is done in a metal shop to small parts is to heat them red hot, and then bury them in a box of lime, causing very slow cooling. You could use dry cement in place the lime. The process just calls for it to cool slowly.

[Joe Gwinn]

Could you add to your comment about annealing, or point me to a thread that may have more info if you know of one. I'd be interested in annealing some steel parts. Thanks.

As many have said, the point is to get the stuff red hot, then cool slowly.

Small objects will tend to scale (oxidize) badly when heated red hot in air. One classic solution is to put the workpieces in a piece of black iron pipe with unplated cast iron caps, with a bit of paper (to consume the oxygen in the closed pipe and heat the assembly to a red heat, then cover the pipe with ashes or lime or whatever to slow the cooling. It may be useful to put anti-seize (as used for automobile exhaust systems) on the pipe threads.

The reason to use black iron pipe and caps, versus zinc plated, is to avoid "zinc fever", which is cause by breathing the fumes from when the zinc metal evaporates on the way to red heat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_fume_fever

If one cannot get unplated pipe and caps, remove the plating by heating the hardware outside, well away from people, and boil the zinc off.

[Beef Coon]

Thanks everyone!

[Ray Mills]

Hi Andrew, did you finally find a place where to buy soft iron in rods or bars in Europe? I'm looking for the same thing. Thanks.

Somewhat belatedly, but if still of interest, I represent Bohler Uddeholm Strip products in the UK, and we produce and manage Remko Soft Magnetic Iron supplies worldwide.
You can find a useful link to our technical brochure here: https://www.yumpu.com/xx/document/vi...-uddeholm-uk/5

Any other questions, we'd be pleased to help if possible.

[Joe Gwinn]

Somewhat belatedly, but if still of interest, I represent Bohler Uddeholm Strip products in the UK, and we produce and manage Remko Soft Magnetic Iron supplies worldwide.
You can find a useful link to our technical brochure here: https://www.yumpu.com/xx/document/vi...-uddeholm-uk/5

Any other questions, we'd be pleased to help if possible.

It looks interesting, but I couldn't get the handbook to work properly on my computer, and I don't use any of the social media. Where do I get a plain old pdf?

Thanks

[Joe Gwinn]

They're playing our song

Image video https://www.youtube.com/embed/D2-ig1-xzis

from: http://www.bohlerstrip.com/]Böhlerstrip - Home

[Total Damage]

Hi guys I'm new to the forum but seen the question asked about iron, i only use pure iron to make slugs and keepers. Iron has more magnetic lines per square inch than steel and the end product is a more responsive humbucker........it's also ready available in the U.K. It's a bit expensive but worth it when you hear the end result.... Hi all by the way I'm Raymond and pleased to meet you.