General Purpose Steel - What do you keep on hand?

[dan s]

I normally have 4140, 1018, & O1 on hand.

If you want something that you can machine and weld, pick up some 8620.

This is a 1.5" OD x 2" long chunck of 8620 welded to/through 1/4" thick 1018.

[dp]

I have only 1018 and 12L14. I buy bundles from OnlineMetals.com in rounds and bar which works fine for my simple projects.

[Carld]

That is really an open ended question. I do general machine work, custom machine work, production work and welding and fabricating. For that reason I have on hand rounds, flat bar stock and squares of CR and HR and angle iron and flat plate of several metals. I have some copper, brass, stainless steel, and tool steel. I only buy enough exotic alloys to do the job and anything left is tagged.

The answer to what metals you have on hand is determined by what you do and how much of it. As to round stock to machine I like 1045 but use anything I have most the time.

[camdigger]

Great, huge piles of mystery metal..

Including, but not limited to...

26' 1 1/4" steel polish rod (4140?)
3' 1 3/4" sinker bar composition unknown
6 1 1/4" TCP drop bars assorted lengths low carbon steel exact composition unknown
Approx 500' assorted sizes sucker rod
1200' J55 EUE tubing
40' 4 1/2" pipe unknown pedigree - concrete lined
40' 5 1/2" OD J55 casing
30' 8 5/8" OD J55 casing
4' 16" pipe unknown pedigree
4' 20" pipe unknown pedigree
miscellaneous bits salvage off assorted machines from 3 widely different industries, including several chrome shafts (all under 25mm), assorted aluminum bits (castings, wrought, and extrusions), a few pieces of brass pedigree unknown...
The mystery and surprises are part of the fun

Offcuts of HR mild steel from miscellaneous projects from 1/8" x 1 1/4" flat to 1" x 3" flat, 1/4" to 2" rounds, a few assorted angle section - need to stock up . A few lengths of drill rods bought for loader pins, shop made tooling, etc.

Oh... and some 0.125" wireline. Must be stainless - hasn't rusted a lick in 10 years outdoors, hard like ^%$#, tough to bend, and nasty stuff to cut. Can be cut with double action cutters or grinder only - leaves wickedly sharp ends when cut... It was free to me, but has since cost me a kings ransom in bandaids....

[John Stevenson]

Originally Posted by motorworks

the guy with the stock will get the job

I just keep the odd length.


And no the slotter isn't floating and that fan belt above it won't support 2 tonnes

.

[David S Newman]

Looking back nearly 50 years I bought a lathe as a complete newby, got it home and had no metal to try it on, well close to me a new school was being built and there was tons of reinforcing rod of various diameters laying around asked the forman if I could have some and was told to help myself. That was my introduction to machining and done some quite nice work using this rod, even got a reasonable finish if my memory serves me right. David

[PaulT]

Me for steel, 1018 only. I don't like having stuff you can't weld mixed in with weldable materials and I don't like the way the leaded steels corrode.

I don't what you guys are building, but I rarely need hard steels, when I do I special order that material and keep it separate, but for what I build (fixtures, brackets, low usage tooling) I just don't need high carbon steel very often.

Sometimes I'll use 1020 or A36 (hot roll) plate if I need something not to move around too much from the machining.

Paul T.

[lazlo]

Originally Posted by motorcyclemac

That isn't entirely true. 1144 is available in a centerless ground version that is shiney on the surface.

TGP is a different story. I was referring to several reports here and on PM of "Stressproof" that turned out to be common cold-rolled 1144, which like any cold-rolled, warps when you machine it.

[motorcyclemac]

Originally Posted by lazlo

TGP is a different story. I was referring to several reports here and on PM of "Stressproof" that turned out to be common cold-rolled 1144, which like any cold-rolled, warps when you machine it.

Oh..sorry. I was unaware of the early misunderstanding on the lists about what is and what is not "stress proof". In that case...YES...black suface and often has a hammered chamfer on the end. It is heavily drawn thru a die for the stress stabilizing process.

It is never the appearance of standard silver dull cold rolled... either black...or tagged "stress proof" in cardboard tubes when centerless ground.

A shop I used to work in used a LOT of stress proof... all was centerless ground.. and we had rounds on hand up to 4.5 inches diameter.. That sure was nice to work with. All clean...round...and machined beautifully.

Now...we can futher confuse the issue by bringing 1144 "Fatigue Proof" in to the mix. Yet...another version..with a higher tensile strength.. Stress proof is 115,000 psi...Fatigue proof is 140,000 psi. Still machines the same.

Cheers
Mac.

[wierdscience]

General purpose steel?A-36 and 1018,everything else is special.

So we keep A-36 in structurals and plate and 1018 in CF round and Rect.

The specials can run from 4130 to 8620 to A-2 toolsteel,316 SS to alloy 20 stainless.