Found a flat bar of steel, how do I know what steel it is?

cotdt

cotdt

Joined
Oct 2, 2006
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Found an old rusted bar of steel in my backyard, did a file test and it was annealed, great! I figure it is probably some low alloy carbon steel. So how do I know what kind of steel it is, for heat treating?
 
best bet is to get rid of it and buy some steel so that you know what it is

good luck

jake
 
ya know i didnt like the way i came off.

it came off short and i apologize it wasnt what i intended.

you could ht treat it and try a file test, you could cut a hunk off and send it out to be identified..... but the cost is probably more than its worth, and the file test will just tell you if it will harden but little else.

good luck

jake
 
cotdt said:
Found an old rusted bar of steel in my backyard, did a file test and it was annealed, great! I figure it is probably some low alloy carbon steel. So how do I know what kind of steel it is, for heat treating?
Click to expand...

Just because it is soft doesn't mean it is annealed, could just mean it's mild steel. Do annealed bars of god steel fall out of the sky where you live :D?
 
I agree with the others...You did a file test and found out....that it's soft, not necessarily annealed...It's probably just a mild steel like 1020....

For very little money, you could buy some 1080, or 1084 or 5160 and know what you have. It would probably cost less to buy the known steel as it would to send it out for a metallurgical analysis. You could try hardening it, to see if it will harden, but if it were me....I'd save it for guards and buy a know steel.
 
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