How to separate steel

[pacifica]

Ok. I also have 3 pces of steel that is in a cardboard tube. I think it was ground and polished. Is that isually a certain grade if steel for that?

I know the rods by thompson for linear bearings are ground and polished but I'm sure other rods may be also.You can't really count on them being a certain grade of steel unless there are maker marks.

There are a lot of applications which only need the strength of mild steel( 1018) so you could use any of the unknown steel you have-as long as it isn't so hard that it is difficult to machine-anyway that is what I do.The other issue I have found with unknown steel rods is that frequently diameters under 1" have bends,that is they are not straight.

 

[Ulma Doctor]

materials that are packed in tubes are generally a notch up over raw stock.
Tool steels, shafting , higher end alloys are usually treated better in regards to storage

sometimes paint is applied to the ends, which can be used to identify the material, if you are lucky enough to know where it came from.
Different suppliers often use different color codes, making matters confusing.

 

[Brento]

Well i know the 3 rods in the cardboard tubes were polished and ground. I dont think it was crap steel. I just cant remember what the lady said.

 

[7milesup]

Brento:

I came across this issue a while ago regarding a 5"x36" piece of solid stainless. I knew it was stainless, and it was not magnetic. Unfortunately, that still leaves a lot of questions.
There is a thread on here titled "Needing more than a spark test" that has some good reading on trying to determine metal composition. Needing more than a spark test. The only issue is those guys go into nuclear gamma ray photon beam neutralizer with a dose of chemistry laced in there, or something like that, all of which is far over my pay grade.

 

[Weldingrod1]

If you really need to know, you might convince your local scrap yard to zap it with their XRF gun and tell you...

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

 

[7milesup]

^^^Yeah, that thingy^^^

 

[Janderso]

Handheld XRF Spectrometers for Elemental Analysis

Handheld X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) analyzers have the capability to quantify or qualify nearly any element - from Magnesium to Uranium.

www.bruker.com

I had to look

 

[hman]

Verrrry In-te-resting! I noticed that "list" prices were not to be found ... a sure sign you'll need a ton of money for one of these. Then I found https://www.911metallurgist.com/blog/portable-xrf-analyzer-price which gives price ranges. They seem to be in the general range of $30K to $50K. NOT something you'd find in a generic hobby machine shop.

 

[Brento]

Brento:

I came across this issue a while ago regarding a 5"x36" piece of solid stainless. I new it was stainless, and it was not magnetic. Unfortunately, that still leaves a lot of questions.
There is a thread on here titled "Needing more than a spark test" that has some good reading on trying to determine metal composition. Needing more than a spark test. The only issue is those guys go into nuclear gamma ray photon beam neutralizer with a dose of chemistry laced in there, or something like that, all of which is far over my pay grade.

That is how i felt when i started reading into it.

 

[Brento]

The way i feel is if i need stainless that bad but cant figure out the material ill just pick some up for that job. Im gonna maybe start sorting through it this weekend depending on weather.