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Thread: 1" x 1/8" Copper bar wanted, new flat shiny stock, if possible.

  1. #1
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    Default 1" x 1/8" Copper bar wanted, new flat shiny stock, if possible.

    1" x 1/8" Copper bar wanted, new flat shiny stock, if possible. Between two and five 1 metre lengths, or twice that in half-metre lengths.


    I've looked on eBay often over a month or more, and no-one sells it, or if they do they aren't advertising it. As it's unwise to let random traders let you know you actually want something specific because it double the price or worse, I haven't been banging on doors...

    I have some 20mm x 3 mm, and can get 25mm x 3 mm which is better, but I need the inch-based measures to accurately match thicknesses in a design.

    If anyone in the UK, or EU, has some 1" x 1/8" copper bar to sell, in very good FLAT condition, please let me know. I will do a part exchange too, if you want some new 20mm x 3 mm stock. I have three 1 metre lengths of this stock, new, straight, flat and untouched in supplied plastic wrap.

  2. #2
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    Planning on building a rail-gun, Doc?

    Sounds like fun!

    Adam

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    Hell no. Have thought of trying to build a fletcher once though (If you read William Gibson, you'll know what a horrible and wonderful widget a fletcher is).

    I'm just after some small pieces of copper for miniature heatsinking baseplates. So I should add that although metal stock comes in decent lengths, I can also use offcuts as short as 2", so long as the cross section is right and they don't have any obvious scratches/digs in them. I just need a lot of them, at least 20, ideally up to 50, and decent lengths give more freedom for later thinking.

  4. #4
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    Fletcher = dart gun?

    Powered electrically, or with conventional explosives?

    The explosive one would be easy to build, but a coil-gun / rail-gun style unit would be tricky. (And potentially have a hell of a lot more muzzle velocity!)

    Adam

  5. #5
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    My thought was (and was probably rediculous, they usually are at that stage of 'design') was to use a small ceramic barrel, like a fine pen barrel, possibly 7 or more, some count that would tesselate well to be wound round by a few turns of very heavy copper wire. The idea was to use a dual pulse, one to magnetise a small needle in each tube using the back stop to prevent acceleration, and keep the needles in place while the pulse magnetised them intensely, then the second pulse would reverse the polarity to kick them out of the far ends at high speed.

    That idea has so many unanswered questions that is probably just bad science, but it sounded cool at the time.

  6. #6
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    Ok, I'll re-phrase this.
    Has anyone in Britain got any nice clean flat copper 1/8" thick? I might want more than 1" wide bar, so a plate of the stuff will let me cut what I want. I'm looking every day on eBay too, but 1/8" is rare, most have it in metric now.
    Any old copper?? Aaaany old copper?!

  7. #7
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    Altho Im not in Britain ... Funny you should mention copper..

    On Feb 14 we had (at the transmitter site) had just about all of our copper grounds from about 29 guy anchor pionts and stack of 10 6" by 20ft long copper transmission line stolen from our site..

    Last year they only took the inside conductor 1 1/2" x 20ft copper out of
    8.. so they got brave and came back..
    Hehe..they got caught... we had video of the whole thing as I have several cameras around the site.
    Anyway.. copper is at a all-time high here in the states and its rare to find any lying around. If it was it wont be for long, seems peeps that are unemployed are making a living at stealing copper from Telco and electric depots and substations too, Heck, the found one guy strewn across a transformer that he was trying to cut the copper from burnt to a crisp.

    I will keep an eye peeled for you.. I also look at copper in the same light as you. Pun intended
    Last edited by marconi; 04-11-2007 at 11:42.
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    That's raising the stakes just a tad...
    I think maybe the price is high here too, though people don't usually risk death for it. I used to keep in touch with scrap prices as a guide, but not for years now. There's a huge 600mm x 1200 mm sheet of 10SWG near here, I found. Not exactly an offcut! Not sure how flat it is either, or if it's the C101 stuff, nice, flat, properly machinable. I'll probably end up having to buy fifty times more than I need just to find it in good quality.

    I think the Chinese are buying up a LOT of metal scrap, which is driving all metal prices up worldwide. Not that I blame them, it makes sense, if they value it that much, that's where it will go. Beats mining it.

  9. #9
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    www.metalexpress.net

    Oh sorry, just realized you want an EU source. But I'll leave the link for others.

  10. #10
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    Nice link. Their copper might not be ideal structurally though, is C110 I think. Not C101. Theirs is better for electrical conductors, but C101 is better for mechanical strength and hardness, and especially for machining. But they did have actual 1/8". I might buy from the US anyway, they still like non-metric measurements enough for the cost to be lower (more bulk availability) and the exchange rate means than it might be cheaper in total, so I'll look into that.

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