Mystery (to me) Metal

I often part off ball screw stock with carbide inserted parting tooling, case hardened about .050" below the minor thread diameter, this operation is not in the least bit nice but beats the band saw, $150.00 saw blades VS $10.00 inserts, do not try this at home.
 
Why would this metal turn and drill easily and seem to be hard when sawed.

Drill because the center was soft.

It did not turn easily, you were using carbide, and got a very fine hard shaving. If you'd had HSS it would have blurred over.
 
Don't think it's magnesium if the chips start the fire the whole chip pan burns. Or at least what one of my machinist I worked for told me. We had a job turning some at his home shop , I worked for him part time while in vokie . A start up company then Microcircuit Engineering . I machined the castings for the screen printing . After two years it was a boring under paid job to say the least , but Jim did teach me some things for sure. Shame he died young , to much stress.
 
Back
Top