Supplier of soft iron bars and rods?

[Joe Gwinn]

Ran across this in RCM. The seller does not give the alloy number, but maybe it's 1005 or so. I hope it isn't 1018, which is the commodity cold rolled mild steel, and easily bought.

Soft Iron Rod (0.25 inches diameter) | Moneks Technologies

[jack briggs]

Ran across this in RCM. The seller does not give the alloy number, but maybe it's 1005 or so. I hope it isn't 1018, which is the commodity cold rolled mild steel, and easily bought.

Soft Iron Rod (0.25 inches diameter) | Moneks Technologies

As I understand, 1005 is a steel alloy with <.05% carbon.

[J M Fahey]

Unless he clearly says so (and backs his claim), I would expect garden variety "soft iron" , the most easily available out there, your guess is as good as mine.
The vague description applies to any and all.

[Tony Bones]

From the ad copy:

Creates a concentrated field that is as much as 50,000 times more intense than an air core.

It has a mu of 50,000? Of course not. I'm don't think the seller even knows what he's selling.

[Mike Sulzer]

From the ad copy:


It has a mu of 50,000? Of course not. I'm don't think the seller even knows what he's selling.

Also, a really high permeability is not an issue for pickup making. Short open ferromagnetic cores do make the field larger, but only a few times, and there is not a lot of difference between the effect of a permeability of a couple hundred and many thousands.

[Joe Gwinn]

As I understand, 1005 is a steel alloy with <.05% carbon.

Yes. Makes for a very soft metal, too soft to make for instance screws that need to be strong.

I did ask the seller a pointed question. No answer yet.

For all the spiff of the website, I bet that this is one guy operating out of an apartment. Not a lot of products on offer there.

[J M Fahey]

I make my own speakers, so I'm always in the search for soft iron.

Most suppliers prefer to stock harder types, since 99.8% customers worry about mechanical properties, not magnetic ones.
Oh well.
I can reasonably get SAE1010, have been offered 1008 which anyway never materialized, for one reason or another.
1005? ... not even by name

FWIW the seller mentions no grade at all.

FWIW2 even if available, it would be very soft.

My lathe guy hates it, it produces endless shavings which clog everything, are sharp and love cutting your fingers, a mess.

Being so soft, lathe cutting tool tips tend to bind.

Tired of that, I followed his suggestion and now use free cutting 12L14 , magnetically equivalent to 1014 .

A beauty to machine, produces short shavings, easy to brush off, and is sort of self lubricating, because it contains a little lead.

Magnetically?: magnet assemblies measure about the same at the gap, so I *really* don't lose sleep about alloy "numbers".

*Guess* pickup duty "should" be acceptable, specially because as mentioned above the main reluctance in the path is the air path, which is modulated by string distance; compared to that slight variations inside the iron itself shouldn't be that important.

[Joe Gwinn]

Yes. Makes for a very soft metal, too soft to make for instance screws that need to be strong.

I did ask the seller a pointed question. No answer yet.

For all the spiff of the website, I bet that this is one guy operating out of an apartment. Not a lot of products on offer there.

I did get an answer: Chinedu Moneke said that it was annealed iron with less than 0.3% "impurities". I asked a follow-up question as to what these impurities might be and their relative amounts.

But it sure sounds like annealed 1018 or 1022 steel. Update: Or A36 structural steel, which is common as dirt.

[Joe Gwinn]

I've seen 1005 mentioned in articles on magnetic materials, but never met it. People used to use it to make the cores for DC relays. It is gummy and a nuisance to machine.

As mentioned in another posting, the story is falling apart - what is being sold seems to be annealed ordinary mild steel. Hmm. It might be A36 structural steel.

I use 12L14, and it's a joy to machine. But I can certainly get a foot-long chip when drilling, and yard-long if I'm showing off.

[Tony Bones]

Why bother with this guy? You can get what you need from McMaster-Carr.

[David King]

McMaster has a cold-drawn, zinc-plated steel wire in 3/16" that's anywhere from 1006-1035 carbon. The only sure way to get below 1010 is to buy ladder trusses and rivets which are almost always 1008 and zinc plated for safety. The lower the carbon the less prone to cracking or becoming brittle from work-hardening.
This place, K-Mac, sells 1008-1010 rectangular bars starting at .062 x 1/2. Perfect for blades...
http://kmac-distribution.com/carbon/...m#.VUJrlabYBaA

here are the rounds which were harder to find:
http://kmac-distribution.com/steel/z...m#.VUJvLqbYBaA

[Joe Gwinn]

Why bother with this guy? You can get what you need from McMaster-Carr.

The unspoken question was if he was selling Electrical Iron: https://www.cartech.com/ssalloysprod.aspx?id=2486, or something else. Like ordinary mild steel, which is much cheaper and is commonplace.

From the website:

"Electrical Iron, Nominal Analysis: 0.02 max. C, 0.12 Mn, 0.12 Si, 0.010 P, 0.010 S, 0.20 Cr, 0.08 Ni, 0.05 V, Bal. Fe

Low-carbon iron with good direct current soft magnetic properties after heat treatment [annealing]. Has been used in electro-mechanical relays, solenoids, magnetic pole and other flux-carrying components."

I got a non-answer to my follow-up question. Whatever he is selling, it is probably not true Electrical Iron, or I would not be getting evasive answers.

[Jason Rodgers]

McMaster has a cold-drawn, zinc-plated steel wire in 3/16" that's anywhere from 1006-1035 carbon. The only sure way to get below 1010 is to buy ladder trusses and rivets which are almost always 1008 and zinc plated for safety. The lower the carbon the less prone to cracking or becoming brittle from work-hardening.
This place, K-Mac, sells 1008-1010 rectangular bars starting at .062 x 1/2. Perfect for blades...
1008 - 1010 Carbon Steel Square Bars

here are the rounds which were harder to find:
Zinc Galvanized Round Rods

This place also has 3/16" chamfered magnetic plain steel dowel pins, 100 count for $27.40, though 1/4" longer than standard slugs. Magnetic Dowel Pins