Volvo & Mitsubisy Track Spring Steel?

nozh2002

nozh2002

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I am forwarding this question from Russian forum:
"What kind of steel Volvo and Mitsubishi use on their track springs? I accidently got some broken springs and hammered them to the bars. I know that russian track springs were good to blade from them, and I may expect even superior quality from Swedish and Japaniese springs, but like to know for sure.
Viacheslav. Irkutsk."
Does anybody know?
Thanks, Vassili.
 
Are we talking about truck leaf springs? I don’t know what kind of steel is used in leaf springs. They rust, so it’s not stainless. A broken leaf spring would have had a long hard life. Wouldn’t it be full of stress cracks? I don’t know. I’m just guessing about the cracks.
 
It is leaf spring, of course, please excuse me my English. Viacheslav sad he hammered it out to bars - may be this did take care of microcracks?
Thanks, Vassili.
 
Automotive leaf springs are generally made out of high quality steel, but it is hard to say just what steel they may be.

While they are not stainless since they develop surface rust I have never seen one that rusted through to any great degree, either. Considering the conditions present under a car if they were standard carbon steel I would expect them to corrode away very fast.

I know that the traditional smiths at Himalayan Imports forge their khukris out of automotive leaf springs, and they seem to get excellent results. I recall reading that Mercedes springs are generally considered to be the best for forging, but I would imagine that the materials would be similar regardless of the manufacturer.

Perhaps you would get more helpful answers if you tried asking this in the HI forum.
 
The only way to be sure is to have it analysed. It could be any one of a number of "spring steels" Mercedes-Benz uses a 5160 or it might be a 9260, those are the two best guesses. In any case they make good steels for impact type blades such as a kukri. Himalayan imports uses M_B springs as a favorite.
 
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