Can you ID this steel?

[That Other Guy]

Hi Again Everybody,

I picked up two bars of stainless steel from the local junk yard... one is paint markered with "CM2760" "PN203378"- its about 3"x1/4"x4 ft and the other is markered "CM10311" "PN202837"- its about 3"x1/2"x3ft. I assumed that the "PN" stood for part number and that the "CM" stood for Crucible Metals. I was hoping I stumbled onto a few pieces of Crucible Metals blade steel since they were marked like the steel that I got from Texas Knifemakers Supply. I haven't been able to find anything on the part numbers or the "CM" numbers. The steel piles are separated at the junk yard by general type- steel and stainless steel- the two bars were on a rack with other stainless bars- some of which were manufacturer marked as 304 and other things like USA or a long string of numbers. There aren't any manufacturer type identifiers on the bars that I got. The CM2760 bar is very magnetic but the CM10311 bar is barely magnetic- acts like 304 stainless bar. I'm going to do spark tests and hardening tests in a little while but before I do...Has anyone else ran into this stuff or these numbers?

Thanks!

 

[deker]

Have you tried calling crucible and asking them?

-d

 

[A C Richards]

The non magnetic material is austenetic stainless and cannot be hardened by heating. It can be work hardened but useually will not make a good blade. It will make good fixtures. The other is unknown. As dek pointed out maybe call crucible. You can do some testing on it to see if you can HT it but were do you start? Most SS is air hardening and very small window for good performance.
Good luck
Chuck