What's 516?

I

itrade

Joined
Jul 3, 2002
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I was over at the scrap metal yard (what a cool place) and found some 3/8" steel marked "516 grade 70". The guy at the yard didn't know what it was and it wasnt' in his book.

Any ideas if it would make a good forging steel for knives and how to treat it?

Steve
 
Some sites that seem tohave composition information on this alloy. Though must admit I'm not quite sure what they're saying about the carbon in the first link.

http://www.oliversteel.com/astm516.htm

OK I lied, that's only one I found. Might contact them and see


argh, ok, I'm stupid, reread page. Looks to be low carbon alloy, no good for blades.
 
That term relates to steel that is used for ASME code fabrication and is a "no carbon" steel. It is a very good steel for constructing pressure vessels and such. The numbers are used to determine what electrode or filler metal to use in welding it, along with what pressures the steel is used to contain.
Where the numbers we are most familiar with, 1070, 5160, 52100, etc, engineers are very familiar with the SA516 gr. 70. A good steel but no carbon. It has a tensil strength of 70,000 psi.
 
Thanks Raker,

Sounds like a handy steel for building stuff in the shop. I'll skip it for knives.

Steve
 
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