Mystery metal

[Evan]

I have a little project that I am working on and I needed a chunk of bar stock, not available in my well protected inside stash. So, out to the wood shed. I found a really nice looking piece of 2 1/2" round stock. Looks like it was cold rolled or maybe even ground. Funny thing is that it isn't totally rusted over like most of the other pieces out there. It still has shiny parts showing through after being out there for almost a decade.

But, because some of it is rusted with honest to goodness real rust it can't be SS. I cut off a chunk in the bandsaw and that proceeded with no trouble so work hardening is not a problem. I chucked it up in the lathe to face it and it cut like a dream, much better than 1018. I drilled a 9/16 hole in it no trouble.

I really wonder what alloy this is. It seems to be much more rust resistant than the usual run-of-the-mill stock but isn't stainless. The application I am using it for won't care if it is mystery metal.

Ideas?

[IOWOLF]

"I chucked it up in the lathe to face it and it cut like a dream, much better than 1018. I drilled a 9/16 hole in it no trouble."

Could it be a Leadloy?

[SGW]

Not Ledloy -- that stuff rusts if you look at it cross-eyed.

There's a gazillion kinds of "stainless" and I think some of them will rust, after a while, but I wouldn't expect free-machining qualities.

[Your Old Dog]

just a couple of thoughts.
I made knives out of 440c and it will rust before it is heat treated.

Could it be your shaft picked up some qualities from a bearing on part of it that allows it to rust/no rust?

My cats breath on some of my tooling will cause rust in quarter sized areas. It's a very dense rust structure and seems to have thickness over regular garden variety rust.

Did it come from Area 51?

[Lynn Standish]

You said the bar may have been ground. Highly polished steel often doesn't rust nearly as fast/much as the same stuff with a rough finish. Also, polishing may tend to burnish polish or oils into the surface pores of the material. Could any of these things contributed to the lack of intense rust on your material?

[ammcoman2]

Is it possible that it is 416 SS? Machines like a dream but is magnetic.

I was given a Xerox copier a year or so ago and stripped it for parts. Fellow Model Club members figure the shafting material to be 416. I noticed that pieces of shafting that I have cut show rust on the rough edge whereas the ground surface looks perfect.

Regards,

Geoff

[WJHartson]

Wonder if it is an AK steel (aluminum killed). This aided in machining and bending in sheet and plate. I have never seen any in round stock.

Superior alloy made an alloy called either Hi-stress or stress proof that machined easily and didn't rust like other steel. Don't remember its alloy makeup but it was good steel, maybe 4xxx series, and could be hardened to RC 60-62. I used it as screw conveyor connecting shafts in screw that conveyed high sulfer calcined coke (carbon). Nothing else held up like it. You could actually get the shafts out after they had been in service without using a torch. It was expensive.

Joe

[DBW]

It could be a chrome plated hyd. piston rod.

[Milacron of PM]

You could take it to a scrap yard that has a metals spectrometer. Or mail a slice to these guys.

www.spectro.com/pages/e/p010106.htm



[This message has been edited by D. Thomas (edited 07-25-2005).]

[rockrat]

Is this realy handheld? I mean, its huge.
(get your mind out of the gutter)
http://www.spectro.com/images/instru...gb_375x300.jpg

We had one of these little gems at work for a while.
http://www.environmental-expert.com/...on/xrfxli2.jpg

I marked every piece of scarp that I could find on my shelf. It gets close, but it would sometimes get 4140 and 4150 mixed up.

I would bet that your local scrap yard would have something similar. They told us that the technology is getting cheap. That might be $10K cheap or $5k cheap, I dont know.

[Evan]

I'm pretty sure nobody has a spectrometer around here except at the mines. I don't have a coneection inside the assay labs anymore. It isn't really important although I still have a couple of feet of the stuff.

It isn't chrome plated and the suface rust cleaned off nicely with some emery paper. I guess I should try a spark test. I will find out more when I try to weld it.

[Bullpit]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by SGW:
Not Ledloy -- that stuff rusts if you look at it cross-eyed.
</font>

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All people need are rules

[Milacron of PM]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">I would bet that your local scrap yard would have something similar. They told us that the technology is getting cheap. That might be $10K cheap or $5k cheap, I dont know. </font>

Friend of mine scraps out manufacturing plants and carries one of the smaller units like your second photo. Prices are still pretty high though...I think his was $12,000 or so.

The handhelds are not as accurate as the floor models, but good enough for most field useage. I have an older (1994 vintage) full size, on wheels, Spectrotest..I think it cost about $25,000 new. But it's old now from a software standpoint...DOS based, and a PITA to interpret the data it recieves....so not worth much now.

OTOH, I had the ultimate metals spectrometer, made in Switzerland (name escapes me at the moment), made in 1999 and a current model, which cost over $60,000 new. I sold it a few months ago to a foundry.

And guess where that foundry was ?
Why China of course !