Type steel in Harbor Freight hand tools

[4GSR]

I don't like to admit to it, but the people I do consulting for pretty much outsource all there work to China. Talk about this some other time. Anyways, thru my consulting I have to deal with the guys over there almost on a daily basis by email.

One of the biggest issues is materials.

They outsource for materials from their local suppliers over there just like we do here. But the differences is, the grades of materials they have available to them. It is all based on the ISO system grading instead of our familiar AISI/ASTM/ASME system, which most of use are familiar with. They do not stock any heat treated materials, or very little, if few do.

So if you order AISI 1018/1026 steel as you would do here you will get something that the Chinese MTR will call 18Mn/C18D2 or 25Mn/C26D2, of course in Chinese! (Its a trip trying to cypher out one of their MTR's)
If you wanted AISI 4140/42 steel you order 42CrMo4. Again, it will not be heat treated, it will be "as rolled", not annealed or normalized. Heat treating is a operation you have to get done locally.

Same way with tool and die steels. If you want A1 or O1, it may come to you as 5Cr4W5Mo2V or if made to a German specification be something like 1.2345.

Bottom line to this madness is, Most anything you get from China that is made steel, is to an ISO specification, not ANSI specification. The issue is, was the steel and heat treat selected properly for the tool mentioned? I think most that have posted to this thread have answered that.

Ken

 

[hman]

Good info here ... a bit disappointing but overall not really too surprising

Now howzabout this ... I've occasionally seen cheapo machine parts (chucks come to mind) that are advertised as being made of "semi steel." Is that just a loose term some marketing weenie came up with for a slightly higher grade of cast iron, or is it actually well defined?

Thanks!

 

[4GSR]

(chucks come to mind) that are advertised as being made of "semi steel."

Thanks!

Semi-steel is a term used to hide the fact it's made of cast iron in general. It's not related to ductile iron as some get it confused by. And it not "cast steel".

It suppose to be a finer grain of cast iron or sometimes called "meehanite" which was a patented process of getting higher grain and strength out of regular cast iron by adding/controlling certain chemicals to the chemistry of cast iron follow by a cooling process that yields "semi steel".

I have a 10" Cushman 4-jaw chuck bought new many years ago made of semi-steel. You have to be carful tightening on to a chunk of iron. The chuck body actually deflects a few thousandths while indicating in..because of the thin walls of the chuck.

Ken

 

[KBeitz]

Most of Grizzlys tools is made of meehanite ...