Wagon173
Senior Member
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2012
- Messages
- 129
- Reaction score
- 32
So this may be a rookie mistake, but maybe I can save another rookie a few bucks in carbide from posting it. I read that in my steam engine you shouldn't use an aluminum piston with an aluminum cylinder. I know that rule in general but figured that it wouldn't matter in such a small engine. Being a brand new model engineer, I took the advice. So I searched and searched my shop for some sort of steel. After about 15 minutes of turning up nothing, my set of allen keys caught my eye. I'd always thought the 10mm key was about an inch and a half too long... I cut through it okay. I just had to go slow and put a decent amount of downward force on it with trusty ole hack saw and a little wd40. When I got it to the lathe, however, I chewed through my HSS bit. Figuring it was hardened, I busted out the carbide. I also chewed through three pieces of carbide before I took a step off my pride and admitted defeat. I had no idea cheap allen keys were made out of pure kryptonite!