Hello

I am looking for a material that is:

A. Completely non-magnetic

B. Strength: As strong & abrasion resistant as reasonably possible

C. Size: Available at as a sheet of at least 10x10cm and thickness of 'exactly' 1.0mm (at least 0.97mm, less then 1.1mm)

D. Bonding: Must be reasonably easy to bond with adhesive (e.g. general purpose epoxy resin, or E6000 or CA/superglue)

E. Colour: Must be either black or 'silver' colour

F. Must be machinable. (i.e. I need to be able to sand/machine it.)

G. Needs to be available… fast!
(ideally within 24 hours)

APPLICATION
For indoor use. And normal room temperature. The exact application details are complicated. It is for some scientific testing instrumentation that I am ​​​​making. It will need endure quite a lot of repeating mechanical impacts & a bit of abrasion…

DISCUSSION
I was thinking about various metals:

– Aluminium?
I was thinking of aluminium but the stuff that I have is rather soft. What would be a strong grade & where could I get it from?

– Copper & Brass
I also have some copper & brass but of course neither of them are silver in colour.

Lead is too soft. Titanium is weakly magnetic. Chromium/Platinum – too expensive

Stainless steel – from memory if it is 'Austenitic' then it should be completely non-magnetic. From my notes, the following grades of stainless steel are Austenitic: 201, 205, 301, 302, 303, 304, 316.

But which grade would be best & where can I get it super-fast?!

I was also thinking about some kind of strong black plastic (e.g. Nylon?) but that's quite hard to glue.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Donnie

Edited By Donald MacDonald 1 on 27/04/2022 21:42:15

The application involves high strength permanent magnets. The main thing is that it is important that material does not "short circuit" the magnetic flux between two plates.

D

Thank you for all your thoughts, folks. [Albeit what a strange reaction from some of you!]

I was hoping that you might be able to furnish me the names of model-making suppliers because as we all know sourcing small amounts of industrial materials can be difficult to locate, slow to arrive and suffer from large minimum order quantities.
I just wanted some suggestions as to what materials that I hadn't thought of, and which might also be swiftly available.

Time is short and I don't need a perfect solution. And I am assuming that you lot have better things to do than to read my PhD. But to save time I have carefully given you the broad constraints which should suffice.

I couldn't locate any higher performance Aluminium last night, so to keep things moving I have ordered some Grade 1050 Aluminium plus some 316L Stainless Steel in 1mm sheet from Amazon. I suspect that the 1050 is probably a bit soft and I am suspicious that the 316L will be under 1mm (as well as the paramagnetic concerns), however one or other may do the job well enough for now, and both of which should arrive within 24 hours.

I spoke to direct-plastics.co.uk, (good suggestion, thank you Andrew!) about Tufnol of which there are various sub-types. However they said that a) it can chip on impact and b) it's not black. Instead Direct Plastics suggested black Nylon 6 so I ordered a small 1mm thick sheet. Nylon 6 it can be hard to bond with standard epoxy resins, but they suggested Permabond TA4246 (a "2-part, no-mix, room temperature curing structural adhesive"  ), which I have also ordered from GlueOnline.co.uk who offer a next day delivery. The Permabond TA4264 should like it will be useful for other stuff I am working on.

If the 1050, 316L and Nylon 6 all fail, then fibreglass (FR4) will be next on my list.

I think most woods are will be softer and less good a resisting abrasion than each of 1050 Aluminium and 316L stainless. Any normal paints will presumably abrade off as well as require a really good bond so I'm not going that direction for now.

Don

Edited By Donald MacDonald 1 on 28/04/2022 13:01:04