Here in new Zealand the vehicle certification guys got involved after a couple of axle breakages. They have developed a non destructive test for quality that all of these axles must pass in order to get your car approved for road use. Axles are stamped with a serial number on passing inspection. Peace of mind for the car owner, knowing his car will be safe. System seems to work well. Garpo
The rationale behind billet is eminently sound. Machining is how you make a part when the numbers you envisage don't justify tooling etc. for other techniques. The resulting part has a distinct look, and if the part is visible the look gets associated with the process and that says bespoke, not mass produced. Soon, of course, people begin to miss the implications of the process and it just becomes a fashion. Then "billet look" parts with no machining get mass-produced, and all the didactic aspect of the thing goes to pieces. And then some of us get the feeling that something about the whole phenomenon is off, hence the current anti-billet sentiment. In as far as hot rodders have a task in developing new technologies it should be all about making bespoke stuff affordable. Machined billet has to be part of that.
I think " cast billet' is a misnomer for a cast aluminum piece that has been polished to the point where it looks like a piece of shiny billet aluminum
Careful of the word police! Back in the '60s Hot Rod Magazine tech articles used "big" words..I would relay the article to friends in school using those words and no one would know what I was talking about! My English teacher over heard me one day and the reaction of the kid I was talking to..He handed me a pocket dictionary.
I’m of the firm conviction (in other words I believe) that people who use words that they know are not commonly used or understood are simply trying their best to say hey look at me. Look how smart I am, I’m way smarter than you because I can use all these big fancy words. All I can say is hey look at the big brain on you Seriously spare us the displays of your perceived superiority Nedd.
lol ...looks like Ned can stir up a hornets nest! makes for some interesting conversation. Talking billet, I envision banks of CNC machining centers running programs made by engineers/programmers etc. Translation "big bucks" Impressive parts indeed! But a hot rod is basically a step back in time. Billet is now. In my opinion the billet stuff doesn't quite look right on the old hot rod.
Back when my dad still worked at the Renton Wa Boeing plant one of the fun things when I went over to visit was a trip to the Boeing Surplus store. That was right at the start of the billet part thing when guys could run down and buy a 40 lb block of aluminum or even a block of titanium for a machining project for not a lot more than scrap price. Somewhere out in one of the sheds I still have a pair of two or so inch thick by 8 inch round disks that were probably the centers of holes cut in a piece. that my son picked out. On the strength of forged axles. Somewhere out in my boxes of old photos there are some of my 48 when it got hit around 1975 bending the right side of the front axle back about 90 degrees and breaking the spring. No cracks in that axle when we pulled it off and replaced it. I've got a forged SoCal dropped axle for my 31 Vic and it is a stout looking piece. Picked it up off Ebay from a seller who had drug it around to shows as a display unit for several years and they said it showed wear from handling. The box shows a lot of wear but the axle looks great.
Yes, same origins. Iron is an element. Steel is an alloy of iron made by adding around 3% carbon. Add chromium to steel and you get stainless steel. Add nickel to stainless and you get magnetic stainless steel. Add chromium and molybdenum to steel and you get piton metal and dragster frame metal. Forged chrome moly steel would make the strongest axles not counting titanium.
To the OP question, grade 1018 steel is NOT cast. That designation is for a low carbon, low alloy grade, made by re-rolling steel billets. But it is ductile and will forge quite easily. I would question its use in axles, as the strength is fairly low.
I listened to or read about that surplus store for years and just salivated every time. I don't think Boeing Portland had a surplus store, at least I had never heard about it. I for sure would have been a regular customer, luckily, working where I did we could buy odds and ends or some days bring a LARGE lunch pail to work.
And who said anything about that? Saying something or writing in a manner which can be understood without trying to make yourself look like something special doesn’t mean what you’re implying.
Regardless of Ned's language, I always find his posts thought provoking, so I'm willing to overlook his lack of education.
And they speak it a lot better than most of the people in the US. I consider @Ned Ludd posts educational, because 95% of the time after I read one of them I end up searching the internet due to something he says. We can always use more education, can;t we?
"Didactic" isn't that weird of a word. It's more precise than "instructive" or "explanatory" in the context, and a bit shorter to boot
The wonders of Vanadium, added to steel in proper proportion eluded to , no, alluded to, in an earlier post. The axle has been twisted I don't know how many times, without breaking. There sure are some fart smellers, er, smart fellers here at the HAMB!
The Jalopy Journal
