Makeitfrom.com – Material Properties Database | Hacker News Reader

Makeitfrom.com – Material Properties Database

makeitfrom.com

80 pointsrayshan14 comments

It might be a bit difficult to navigate this site if you don’t know the intricate details of material sub-types - you’ll probably recognize the top-level categories and then get stumped by the subcategories (hybrid austenitic-ferritic wrought cold finished…? ).

Having worked in a machine shop, here are some common engineering materials you might be familiar with:

Stainless steel https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Cold-Finished...

Aerospace-grade aluminum https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/7075-T6-Alumi...

Tool steel (this is what most cutters, drills, punches, blades etc for cutting and milling other metals are made of) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Hardened-M2-T...

Tungsten carbide (what high-quality cutting tools are made of - usually you have a small bit with three or four cutting edges, mounted in some fashion on tool steel holders) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Tungsten-Carb...

it does have a search box but it's not great

i think the materials you listed are pretty exotic. almost nothing but cutting tools is made from wc. 7075 aluminum does get some non-airplane use but not much. even 316 stainless is less common than 304, and stainless and tool steels are a lot less common than mild steel

maybe worth mentioning:

- metals -

a36 mild steel (railroad tracks, bridge girders, junk) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/ASTM-A36-SS40...

304 stainless (silverware, sinks, stainless bolts, cookware, exhaust pipes) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/AISI-304-S304...

free-cutting brass (house keys, anything else that needs to be metal but easy to cut and can't just be cast from zamak) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Half-Hard-H02...

lead-tin solder (old or high-reliability circuits) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/ISO-Solder-Al...

lead-free solder (low-reliability new circuits) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/ISO-Solder-Al...

tough pitch copper (electrical wires) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/UNS-C11000-CW...

zamak (toy cars, some gears, most die-castings; easily castable) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Zamak-3-ASTM-...

- plastics -

hdpe (shopping bags, milk jugs) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/High-Density-...

polylactide (pla, 3-d prints) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Polylactic-Ac...

pet (coke bottles, clothing) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Unfilled-PET

6,6 nylon (clothing, seatbelts, oven bags) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Polyamide-PA-...

unfilled epoxy (glue; they don't list fr4, other glass fiber composites, or jb weld) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Epoxy

silicone (oven mitts, caulk, gaskets) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Silicone-Plas...

natural latex rubber (condoms, gloves, tires, gaskets) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Isoprene-Natu...

buna-n nitrile rubber (gloves, handgrips, gaskets) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Acrylonitrile...

- wood -

mdf (lasercut signage, shitty furniture) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Medium-Densit...

pine (buildings, bad furniture) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Spruce-Pine-F...

- ceramics -

granite (surface plates, buildings) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Granite

sandstone (buildings) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Sandstone

soda-lime glass (windows, bottles) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Annealed-Alka...

mycalex (a hard, machinable insulator that handles higher temperatures than organics) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Glass-Bonded-...

porcelain (they don't have a wide selection of fired-clay materials, but dishes, flowerpots, and bricks are broadly similar, if shittier) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Pressed-Silic...

cubic zirconia (chinese knives, refractories, nernst lamps) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/MgO-Partially...

***

btw generally i'd rather use matweb

Yeah, I just threw in a few things I happened to know the specifics of from working with them in a factory. So it was just the intersection of "materials you might be familiar with" and "materials I know the specific grade for". I am extremely glad to see more materials listed, your comment is wonderful!

thank you!

Nice Site I studied Materials Engineering - graduated some years ago now - back in the day we had a cdrom program we had to pay for a license key as undergrads to gain access to a material properties database - this site seems like a much more modern version.

As a top level category may want to add composites - I note wood was under Polymers but could not find CFRP, Fibreglass (GRP) etc. Also Graphene (I did my thesis on synthesizing this material so particular interest to me...)

If you could generate charts like these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_selection#Ashby_plots for a selected list of materials that would be a useful feature.

Materials Engineering always struck me as something very interesting. Are there many big employers in this space nowadays? How does one break into the field?

I work in the Steel industry doing process metallurgy work. A lot of people I graduated with ended up similar places (Mining industry, Copper/Aluminum Smelters etc). I know a few people who got involved with Non-Destructive testing (NDT) industry and places like that. I know one person who ended up in Nuclear sector.

At the time I was studying nanotechnology was the projected next big thing in materials science but that industry never really took off like people were expecting it to (there was certainly no nanotech jobs boom like people were projecting). I was personally interested in electrochemistry, battery technology etc but I was about 10 years too early for the Renewables/EV boom, so timing wasn't really right.

I think nowadays Hydrogen energy sector and Renewables more broadly are the big growth areas.

Metallurgy for the steel industry sounds like a cool experience. If its not too much of an ask, can you talk a little more about what kind of stuff you do for it? Daily tasks, favourite recent projects, etc?

Ashby plots are the best. I stumbled on one of his books once early on and fell in love.

I'm almost uncomfortable saying this: I wish that each entry linked to suppliers for that entry. I wouldn't even mind if the site made money off affiliate links or similar. As a hobbyist, the hardest "material" related challenge I face is where to even buy it, let alone at prices that aren't insane.

Based on the URL, I expected a material lookup app where you enter design constraints, and get a list of suitable materials. With each added constraint you could get a shorter list, plus a suggestion for new ones to add that narrow the list further. Maybe not super useful for people who already know what they're doing, but it could be interesting.

Nice resource; would it be possible to add citations to the data sources?

High-end plastics are intersting category just because they can be so exotic. You don't really see or hear about things made of stuff like Celazole etc so it is difficult to get a grasp how they compare to more commonplace materials

cool! It would be interesting to connect with an llm... as it goes these days.

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