Jon Noring wrote: > >Of course, this assumes that metal sculptures are made out of bronze, >ordinary steel or maybe aluminum, not any corrosion-resistant alloy. >There are "cast stainless steels", but I suspect very few, if any, >sculptures are made with such "exotic" materials.
I have recent experience in using castings in S316 which is a high-molybdenum alloy with good low-staining characteristics. It also machines very cleanly provided cutters are regularly ground and feed rates modest with plenty of coolant. It took best part of a week to remove 2kg of cuttings from a 90lb casting but much of that was in agonising over the best way to hold/align something with very few reliable surfaces. > >Some of the exotic alloys are best described >as "damn hard" (there's "hard", "very hard" and "damn hard" on the >Jon's Scale of hardness), ....which reminds me of the Victorian paint company which sold 'Damard Lacquer'. Unbelieveably they went on to market 'Damarder' and 'Damardest'! > >To me, I just want to machine it, shine it up some and put it out in >the field. No plating, coatings, surface hardening, etc. Just >natural metal, as God (oops, I mean the metallurgist) intended. :^) > >I'd love to find a "super" alloy with a naturally golden or brass >color but without the "gold cost". So far as I am aware there were, until recently, only two elemental metals with a colour other than grey/white viz copper and gold so they will have to be consituents of this sought-after alloy I think. Tony Moss -
