[rescue] Accidentally destroying hardware..

[George Adkins]

On Tuesday 26 March 2002 01:40 pm, you wrote:
> I see.  One, or both, of the timing gears in my Buick is powdered
> metal.  It really doesn't melt together totally??  It's hard to imagine
> it being strong, that way.  I wasn't aware that turbine blades were made
> that way.  I thought they were usually titanium.
>
Some turbine blades. 

Sintered powder casting is a great way to get parts that are very, very 
uniform in their composition, cross sectionally speaking.  Extruded, forged 
or liquid cast parts all have 'grain' in them based on the physical process 
of deforming the metal and/or turbulence when the material "flows".

Also, sintered material can be more elastic and resilient than monolithic 
parts, and can in some cases be lighter.  Consider what mixtures of different 
metals powders with similar melting points but different densities could 
result in.