What a Waste of Aluminum

[rake60]

The job I'm currently working on at work is a cylinder head for a major
crane manufacturer. The heads are aluminum, 14 1/4" on the OD and
roughly 11" on the smallest ID. It's less expensive to buy 14 1/2" solid
aluminum stock than it is to buy 14 1/2" X 11" aluminum tubing, so that's
the way we go. First step in the manufacturing process is to drill a 6 1/2"
hole through the slugs of stock with a Hertle Drill.
6 1/2" hole through a 8 1/2" thick slug turned to chips.
It's enough to make a model builder cry! :cry:

Rick

 

[1Kenny]

Had about the same thing happen a couple of weeks ago. A rear pully on a motorcycle came loose on a guy that was on a road trip from Mississippi. I have a few pounds of 6061 X 4" round stock and had to cut 4/5s of it away to make an outter ring to beef up the hub to put heli-coils in 5 bolt holes. One would think that the person that made the wheel and hub would have taken on the thought that it would need repair over time and and little edge distance on the out-side of the threads would be in order. But no way. I could have made 2 flywheels for a small engine out of the waste. The good thing was, I got some hundred doller bills out of it, it was in on Friday afternoon out on Sunday morning and he went on to L A. So much for a $3000.00 wheel and $900.00 pully. Now I have more 6061.