where to buy soft iron rods

anyone know where I can buy soft iron rods in various sizes and shapes?
Seems to be a nightmare to find anything.

thanks.

On 2009-06-28, Ken Williams <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> anyone know where I can buy soft iron rods in various sizes and shapes?
> Seems to be a nightmare to find anything.

these days a good substitute is mild steel.
I'd try a hardware outlet, if they dodn't have what I wanted I'd go to
a metal supplier like "metalcorp"

steel tie wires are mild steel, fencing wire is not
many bolts are mild steel.

> thanks.

Ken Williams wrote:
> anyone know where I can buy soft iron rods in various sizes and shapes?
> Seems to be a nightmare to find anything.
>
> thanks.

I used to cut lengths of wire from coat hangers and bundle them to make
a soft iron core.

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
> Ken Williams wrote:
>> anyone know where I can buy soft iron rods in various sizes and shapes?
>> Seems to be a nightmare to find anything.
>>
>> thanks.
>
>
> news:rec.crafts.metalworking is where you want to ask. You don't say
> where you are located, whch makes a huge difference of where you can
> find it.
>
>

I'm in canada. ebay doesn't seem to have much when I search for "soft
iron core".

Mark Rand wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 03:30:51 -0400, Ken Williams <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>
>> I'm in canada. ebay doesn't seem to have much when I search for "soft
>> iron core".
>
> Sounds as if you are actually looking for magnetically soft iron rather than
> mechanically soft iron (they are fairly closely related, but not an exact
> match).
>
> If it's for an AC application, take a hacksaw to a microwave oven transformer.
> If it's a DC application, look for hot rolled, low carbon steel. probably
> AISI 1005 will be as good as you can get. High silicon magnetic steels tend to
> be fairly hard to obtain in small quantities and expensive except by robbing
> existing equipment (like MOTranfromers).
>

What about pulsed DC? thats considered AC?

Its for electromagnet coils that will be pulsed with DC. I want a good
iron core to concentrate the magnetic flux.

"Ken Williams" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:Mpd2m.1025$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Mark Rand wrote:
>> On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 03:30:51 -0400, Ken Williams <(E-Mail Removed)>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I'm in canada. ebay doesn't seem to have much when I search for "soft
>>> iron core".
>>
>> Sounds as if you are actually looking for magnetically soft iron rather
>> than
>> mechanically soft iron (they are fairly closely related, but not an exact
>> match).
>>
>> If it's for an AC application, take a hacksaw to a microwave oven
>> transformer.
>> If it's a DC application, look for hot rolled, low carbon steel. probably
>> AISI 1005 will be as good as you can get. High silicon magnetic steels
>> tend to
>> be fairly hard to obtain in small quantities and expensive except by
>> robbing
>> existing equipment (like MOTranfromers).
>>
>
> What about pulsed DC? thats considered AC?
>
> Its for electromagnet coils that will be pulsed with DC. I want a good
> iron core to concentrate the magnetic flux.
>

Tehn you need mu metal. Hard as hell to find!


Steve R.

On Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:08:45 +0100, Mark Rand wrote:

> On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 03:30:51 -0400, Ken Williams <(E-Mail Removed)>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>>I'm in canada. ebay doesn't seem to have much when I search for "soft
>>iron core".
>
> Sounds as if you are actually looking for magnetically soft iron rather
> than mechanically soft iron (they are fairly closely related, but not an
> exact match).
>
> If it's for an AC application, take a hacksaw to a microwave oven
> transformer. If it's a DC application, look for hot rolled, low carbon
> steel. probably AISI 1005 will be as good as you can get. High silicon
> magnetic steels tend to be fairly hard to obtain in small quantities and
> expensive except by robbing existing equipment (like MOTranfromers).
>
> Mark Rand
> RTFM

Coat hanger wire is made out of soft iron. Cut to length and pack into a
cardboard ( or whatever ) tube and wind your coil on that.

You should be able to find a lot of them. They seem to multiply in
closets. ;-)

Al

Is there a simple test to test the difference between mild steel and soft iron?