Don Terrill’s Speed-Talk

Aluminum and steel are generally continuously cast.

Check ALCOA for concast slabs. They can be as big as one per flatbed load.

And check US Steel, Edgar Thompson Works for concast steel that is being rolled into sheet that then is rolled up like toilet paper. These can be as big as one roll per flatbed. Also rolled to make pipe as well as thick slabs, H and I beams and even angle-irons and such.

I have worked in several aluminum and steel integrated mills and steel mini-mills through the years so have watched both operations creating product.

Right, the concast slabs and even cast ingots are reheated in reheat furnaces and then rolled to make shapes/sheets that are then turned into products.

They will take a concast piece, roll it into a slab then forge it into shape to create a billet that is then machined into a part or a regular forging.

pdq67

I wonder if steel heads are worth more than cast iron heads?

77cruiser wrote:I wonder if steel heads are worth more than cast iron heads?

Well that's what it's all about really.

Salesmen?
If it's cast, it must be iron.
If it's steel , it automatically means that it's forged so it's worth lots more.

dave brode wrote: ↑Tue Feb 17, 2015 10:52 am On that subject, aren't "billets" actually a casting? So, if true, doesn't a billet crank start from a casting?

No. Billets are machined from a solid chunk of material.

I've never heard anyone call them steel heads.

ChevelleNut wrote:

dave brode wrote: On that subject, aren't "billets" actually a casting? So, if true, doesn't a billet crank start from a casting?

No. Billets are machined from a solid chunk of material.

I think the point that's maybe being made is that all 'billets' start out as 'castings', ie liquified steel being poured into a mould to solidify, and then subsequently processed ...... rolled or forged etc ...... into the raw billet

Mostly these days by the 'continuous casting process'

ChevelleNut wrote: ↑Wed Apr 14, 2021 10:37 pm

dave brode wrote: ↑Tue Feb 17, 2015 10:52 am On that subject, aren't "billets" actually a casting? So, if true, doesn't a billet crank start from a casting?

No. Billets are machined from a solid chunk of material.

Yes, but do they not start as a casting? [poured as molten metal into a mold of some sort.

Like a "forged" piston, is cast, then hit with forging dies.

ChevelleNut wrote: ↑Wed Apr 14, 2021 10:37 pm I've never heard anyone call them steel heads.

All the time on FB Marketplace.

Here is where it started imo:

http://www.racingin.com/Series/SteelBlockBandits.aspx

Maybe they meant to say

Steal

Oh, dear! So do I look for engine mounts or motor mounts then? Or rubber vibration transference isolators? Or perhaps rubber vibration absorptive containment devices? It's all so confusing......

HB

ChevelleNut wrote: ↑Wed Apr 14, 2021 10:37 pm I've never heard anyone call them steel heads.

viewtopic.php?f=31&t=62574

At one time I tended to call any white mystery metal i encountered "zinc"
But that went away as I learned to actually identify "white metals" such as lead alloys, tin alloys, babbitt, zamac, pewter, cupro-nickel, magnesium, ect.

Billet means it was carved out of a solid piece of material. Usually good quality material is used.
Tho if you had a solid block of melted down licensee plates...I'd say that's still a "billet".

Probably the same reason some track rules in my area state NO NITROUSMETHANE, they don't have a clue and go by what others have said in the past.

Racing68 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 13, 2021 6:45 pm Probably the same reason some track rules in my area state NO NITROUSMETHANE, they don't have a clue and go by what others have said in the past.

If that's official nitromethane would be legal.