[TheForge] Foil/sheet/plate

[Dave Smucker]

Yes, stainless foil is made and is used for some heat-treating where you make an envelope out of the foil and heat and quench with the envelope sealed (with a fold) to keep O2 from the item being treated.  You can find it from some heat treat supply houses.  It is most likely rolled on a Z-mill or Sendzimer mill.    Here is a link to one manufacture of this type of mill.  http://www.waterburyfarrel.com/presses-rolling-mills/rolling-mills/z-mill   Because the work rolls are very small they can produce a high reduction on high strength material.  Roll size is just like the peen of your hammer vs. the face.  But this also presents a great problem with the lack of stiffness of the work roll - hence the nesting of larger and large rolls to give overall stiffness.  They are a maintenance nightmare.  

We used to roll 2024 high strength aluminum foil with 10 inch work rolls but we could run the product only 20 inches wide on a 60 inch wide mill.  This was so we would have enough load capacity to reduce the metal.  The 2024 was then heat treated and the end use was for honeycomb material for use in fighter aircraft wings.  (It filled the space between the upper and lower wing surfaces.)  In those days household foil sold for about $0.80 per pound and the 2024 foil was $ 8.00 per pound.  We didn't like to run it because we make more per mill hour with the cheap stuff.  We were required by the US Government to run the small requirements for the fighter aircraft.  Here is a link https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/aircraft-honeycomb-panels.html     A patent on this was issued in 1952  https://www.google.com/patents/US2609068

You could make this type honeycomb with lower strength foil also but with lower properties.

Dave Smucker
Brasstown, NC


-----Original Message-----
From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Mike Spencer
Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2017 1:45 AM
To: theforge at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [TheForge] Foil/sheet/plate


Dave Smucker <davesmucker at hotmail.com> wrote:

> In ferrous metal there is very little foil produced since it becomes 
> so hard to roll at very light gauges.  There are some special products 
> for which it is produced in foil gauges but very expensive.

Somewhere I have a piece of stainless thin enough that I'd call it foil.  Don't have a number but easily flexible with the fingers, about the same thickness as an Al 11x14 photo offset plate or maybe a tad less. 

No idea what it may have cost.  Someone gave it to me, maybe at an ABANA conference or NEB meet years ago.

What can you tell us about making that?  Seems like a hard go, given what you've said:

> The technical reason for this is that as the metal gets very thin the 
> rolls flatten rather that the metal being rolled.


- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^
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