low cost lathing materials

[charper]

Looking for a low cost material to make your typical chess pieces on the lathe. 3/4" delrin stock at $3/foot for 120 students just isn't going to cut it.
Unless that is my cheapest price. Found it at IASCO. I could go wood, I tried machining a piece of hardwood from Homedepot, but it came out really rough. Any other cheap ideas?

[Dan S]

does the stock have to be 3/4" ?

http://www.onlinemetalsupply.com has good prices on 6061-t6 aluminum. If you call and ask, maybe you can get some kind of bulk, or school related discount.

$5.99 for 0.6875" x 48"
$7.99 for 0.8125” x 48”

[charper]

Well, 3/4 " is the largest stock that I can shove all the way to the back of my Techno headstock to reduce the number of individual cuts I have to make for pieces. I was thinking 3/4" because anything smaller would probably cost me loss on student breakage. But I could be convinced otherwise..

thank you for the recommendation on the metal supplier, I was looking for one. I was going to make pubdarts with the kids (rubber ended of course) that I learned to make at my MAstercam training class over the summer

[fizzissist]

We've had great experiences with Onlinemetals, even ordering pretty large quantities of 2"+ round 304 SS. The nice thing is you can get small quantities, short lengths, special cuts...

We've also had very good luck with McMaster-Carr on almost everything they stock. We order it early afternoon and have it the NEXT day!!

We don't buy enough to make the big boys salivate (the price of prototyping), so it's nice to know there's good sources of small quantities that are fairly reasonably priced.

http://www.mcmaster.com/

ps....good luck getting 'em to send you a catalog

[Capt Turk]

It doesn't show where you are in the US. If you are in Florida, try Svenga Surplus Metals in Ocala. They sell aluminum and stainless for around $2.50 a lb. Steel for around a $1.50 a lb. Scrap metal dealers don't just collect old fridges, cars, and air conditioners. They get scrap that are drops, and leftovers from machine shops, and industy.
Do some looking around for scrap metals dealers in your area. They will have some surprising stocks of metal. I don't know if any will ship, you'd have to call. Might do it special for teachers.

Capt Turk

[judleroy]

Go to usplastic.com and look under sheets/rods. 3/4" Delrin rod is around two dollars per foot. HDPE rod is
softer but it cuts great. The HDPE is around seven dollars for an eight footer. Hope this helps.