Steve nails it. He knows me too well.
I have a pile of broken halfshafts and have recycled some in the past. My homemade mag-coil conversion has a central spindle made from one and it machined just fine from memory. I’ve used some elsewhere and it’s simply a handy supply of reasonable round material in useful diameters.
Those of you that have read David Thirlby’s book on the Chain Drive Frazer Nash will know that in the early days of GN they built the cars in an old laundry and it still still had metal shafting in the roof space, which was of course, repurposed into parts of a GN. Whenever a potential customer asked what materials were used in the construction of their car Archie Frazer-Nash would answer “Best laundry iron”.
I was considering using some for part of a starting handle assembly I’m making for my Ulster, and was curious if anyone knew what the material actually was. My assumption is that it’ll be a decent quality carburising steel, but beyond that I know nothing.
As has been said EN steels arrived in 1941 as a wartime standardisation programme (Emergency Number, in case you didn’t know). Before that there was no standard naming convention so each steel maker had their own names. You see reference to some old steel names in books like Wheatley and Morgan, despite the books being written post war.
I have a pile of broken halfshafts and have recycled some in the past. My homemade mag-coil conversion has a central spindle made from one and it machined just fine from memory. I’ve used some elsewhere and it’s simply a handy supply of reasonable round material in useful diameters.
Those of you that have read David Thirlby’s book on the Chain Drive Frazer Nash will know that in the early days of GN they built the cars in an old laundry and it still still had metal shafting in the roof space, which was of course, repurposed into parts of a GN. Whenever a potential customer asked what materials were used in the construction of their car Archie Frazer-Nash would answer “Best laundry iron”.
I was considering using some for part of a starting handle assembly I’m making for my Ulster, and was curious if anyone knew what the material actually was. My assumption is that it’ll be a decent quality carburising steel, but beyond that I know nothing.
As has been said EN steels arrived in 1941 as a wartime standardisation programme (Emergency Number, in case you didn’t know). Before that there was no standard naming convention so each steel maker had their own names. You see reference to some old steel names in books like Wheatley and Morgan, despite the books being written post war.