Turning Nickel Silver

[niall Y]

It must have been beginners luck , last time, because when I turned some 18mm diameter ferrules and rings, from some 20mm nickel silver rod; I don't remember the hassle I have encountered this time around.

I spent the whole of today making 4 x 18mm outside dia. x 6mm long ferrules, They were admittedly slightly more complicated,in design having two inner diameters. of 12.7mm and 14mm with the step down about 2mm from the end.

The struggle seemed to start from the off. Cutting away a section with a hack-saw was tough going and took forever. I set it up in my ER32 chuck on the lathe and attempted to drill out with a centre bit but it just wouldn't work i used a small cobalt bit instead to drill out enough to take a revolving centre.
I then tried to reduce the outer diameter to a tad over 18mm. The cutters all seemed to struggle to give a smooth surface and I had to resort to emery to get rid of the ridges Drilling out the centre with an 8mm cobalt bit first followed by a 12mm one, again was really hard going with the lathe shaking and juddering despite applying lots of cutting fluid.

I even resorted to annealing the workpiece, hoping for an improvement, during the next stage. I used a tungsten tipped boring bar to widen the drilled centre and was getting some nice shavings. But the lathe juddered so badly I had to attach a G cramp to hold the tool post down to the carriage. Things did start to improve from hereon in, though I found I had to sharpen the parting tool every time I made a new cut. At the end of the day I feel I've struggled a lot, for so little reward.

 

[Sideways]

This was interesting to me as I had a tiny powerful flashlight from the early days that was machined from nickel silver and it was a lovely thing the way it burnished and remained undamaged over many years until I dropped it off a 2nd storey roof and dinted it a little.

Never machined the stuff but there are tales of NS work hardening, being stringy, gummy, just rather awkward, preferring sharp positive rake tools like the polished, aluminium cutting, inserts. And the term Nickel Silver covering a multitude of different alloys.

Sometimes you do just get lucky. Stainless is the classic for me. Get in ! Get cut ! Get out ! as an old mate used to say. Easy enough if you are decisive and take a robust cut.

Image from the web. Mine's sadly gone.

 

[niall Y]

Never machined the stuff but there are tales of NS work hardening, being stringy, gummy, just rather awkward, preferring sharp positive rake tools like the polished, aluminium cutting, inserts. And the term Nickel Silver covering a multitude of different alloys.

Sometimes you do just get lucky. Stainless is the classic for me. Get in ! Get cut ! Get out ! as an old mate used to say. Easy enough if you are decisive and take a robust cut..

The best cut i managed was with a tungsten insert that had the minutest semicircular groove around the top of the cutting edge. This, I suppose, gave it a slightly positive rake. I'm not so sure how one of those tips for aluminium would perform, but I'm willing to try just to improve things, even a little.

 

[Amplidyne]

No real experience of machining the stuff, but I know that nickel work hardens like crazy. We has some tube that turned out to be nickel that we were trying to drill when we were lads.
It's going to depends very much on the particular alloy that it is I'd have thought. I've been looking at NS to replace the pins in an old, but little used Ibberson penknife that has been "got at" in the far and distant past, and wondered what it machined like if necessary.
Another little "project" for "sometime"

 

[niall Y]

No real experience of machining the stuff, but I know that nickel work hardens like crazy. We has some tube that turned out to be nickel that we were trying to drill when we were lads.
It's going to depends very much on the particular alloy that it is I'd have thought. I've been looking at NS to replace the pins in an old, but little used Ibberson penknife that has been "got at" in the far and distant past, and wondered what it machined like if necessary.
Another little "project" for "sometime"

My problem, apart from it being a 'pig' to machine is that it doesn't seem to be available in all the convenient sizes and forms that brass is. I would love to be able to easily buy 18mm diameter tube with 1mm wall. I can get plenty brake-pipe' sized' but that doesn't really help. Also, the last sheet stock I bought I was only able to buy from China.

I would not have thought that small pins - if you can buy the finished size you need - would cause you any problems.

 

[Amplidyne]

This is where I've been looking
http://www.metalsmith.co.uk/metals-materials.htm
They have larger tube, but not in the sizes you want by the look of it. Might be worth an ask?

 

[Amplidyne]

No real experience of machining the stuff, but I know that nickel work hardens like crazy. We has some tube that turned out to be nickel that we were trying to drill when we were lads.
It's going to depends very much on the particular alloy that it is I'd have thought. I've been looking at NS to replace the pins in an old, but little used Ibberson penknife that has been "got at" in the far and distant past, and wondered what it machined like if necessary.
Another little "project" for "sometime"

And yes, I was hoping to just buy it in at the right size, but I need to pull the knife apart first, and being as I'm using it as my pocket knife at the moment, I wanted to pull it apart when I was ready to do the job. I've never used that company, but they do seem to have plenty of sizes and types of lots of metals.

 

[Fergie 307]

It's a curious alloy. Mainly copper so you would think fairly soft, but isn't.
Only experience I have is working watch cases made of it. Very much the go to material for pocket watch cases in the 19th century. Usually knocking out dents and dealing with scratches. It does work harden, so has to be annealed.
Never tried turning it, but never had any real problems drilling it or tapping holes.