Bite the Billet

[Jerry]

bil·let 2 (blt)
n.
1. A short, thick piece of wood, especially one used as firewood.
2. One of a series of regularly spaced, log-shaped segments used horizontally as ornamentation in the moldings of Norman architecture.
3.
a. A small, usually rectangular bar of iron or steel in an intermediate stage of manufacture.
b. A small ingot of nonferrous metal.
4.
a. The part of a harness strap that passes through a buckle.
b. A loop or pocket for securing the end of a buckled harness strap.

Billet is a tem used to describe a chunk of metal in a foundry that will be formed into the final product. More specifically it is what is formed from an ingot. A billet, in general, never leaves the foundry. "Made from Billet Aluminum" is a marketers creation. If you are machining something you are machining from solid or bar stock but that just does not have the same ring to it...

[Doug Coulter]

Right -- those marketing guys sure go nuts with things like that. And what's funny -- the closer to "true billet" it is, probably the less uniform and good it is too; porous on top, non uniform freeze rate in the mold, all that -- all that rolling and forming seems to improve the basic stock some. Could just be they take more trouble with the expensive stuff, dunno, but like you said, a random chunk of hardware store stuff may not be worth wasting tool life on. I know I learned my lesson on it.

[Joe Jarski]

I like this post! I wonder why they don't use bloom & slab for marketing. I suppose that "Made from bloom aluminum" or "Machined from solid slab" just doesn't sound as cool as billet. Another one I like is the use of "alloy" when referring to aluminum... "I have alloy wheels on my car" or should I say "rims"? Guess what... almost every piece of metal on your car is "alloy"!