Oily copper ?

bikermikearchery

bikermikearchery

Joined
Jan 18, 2007
Messages
1,976
I picked up a piece of copper at the local metal salvage when I hit it on the belt sander it started sweating oil. Washed it in dish soap and tried again and it was still sweating oil when it warms up. Any one ever hear of something like this?
 
What you have is friction bearing material .This is made with powder metal which is compressed and sintered .The voids are then filled with oil.These are used for the "never needs oiling " bearings.Not good for anything but bearings .
 
Mete's right, one brandname for the stuff is oilite bronze. it's great stuff to have when you are building machines, for making your own bushings

-Page
 
hmmmm....Learn something new every day.;)


Hey Mete, On a side note...just thought you might want to know...I had to send your old motor to the happy hunting grounds.:( She did get up on the hammer before she went tho.:thumbup::D
Mace
 
bikermikearchery said:
I picked up a piece of copper at the local metal salvage when I hit it on the belt sander it started sweating oil. Washed it in dish soap and tried again and it was still sweating oil when it warms up. Any one ever hear of something like this?
Click to expand...
Heat it up with a torch and burn the oil out. The oil will be gone. Not sure it will be good for anything once you do that though, but oilite bushings do burn out or wear out.
James
 
San Salvati, I just picked up a small piece 5" x 5" x 3/8" is whats left. I wanted to make guards out of it. not so sure I want to deal with it. If you have a use for such a small piece let me know, I have now idea how available this stuff is. There was a small pile at the salvage yard in pieces approx. 5" x 6" x 3/8" that was the smallest pieces of sheet copper that they had. This stuff was just lumped in with the copper. If you can us it let me know and I'll send it, as long as you post a pic of what you make out of it.
 
I can see Sam planning bearings for his next frankengrinder project.
IT's ALIVE! :D

-Page
 
Mace , I wondered about that ! I was ancient when I got it but id certainly had a long useful life ! ...... I think Sam wants to make sheaths out of the oil copper ,then each time a blade is put into the sheath it gets oiled !!
 
Gentlemen, this maybe too far a leap, but is this the reason why we use bronze bushings in folders? Is it a similar property in bronze that makes them better than the blade steel itself at lubricating the pivot?
 
The knife pivots are just bronze as far as I know and the bronze has has a good coefficient of fricton.Also used is Nylotron which is nylon impregnated with molybdenum disulfide for lubricity.
 
First off, I AM NOT a bladesmith, however, I do have experience with the oilite bushings, they hold oil very well and might well be used as pivot busings, once oiled, I would suspect they would never wear out in that application. The ones we use run in equipment running 8 hrs a day, non stop in cycles similar to opening and closing a blade every work day of the year. Out of the hundreds of thousands of pressure bearing opening and closings of the pivots per year, we rarely replace them every two years or so. Just might work in a knife.
James
 
Knife bushing are very thin and the impregnated bronze would then be very brittle.Perhaps a higher density powder metal would be OK.
 
mete said:
Knife bushing are very thin and the impregnated bronze would then be very brittle.Perhaps a higher density powder metal would be OK.
Click to expand...

Hey, I said I was not a bladesmith. :D:D:D, for all I know about the bushings in knives, they could be the size of the bosters.:D:D:D
 
Sure BMA, I would love some I can think up some uses I would have for it, i'll gladly put up some pictures when I get the chance to put some to good use.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top