Identify Common Types Of Scrap Steel

I use a wood stove sometimes in Winter,especially when the power goes out(!) I have put large pieces of hardened tool steel (12" x 3" x 1") into the stove,well stocked up with hardwood. Get it going. Turn the air intake down low,and let it heat all night. Gets very hot this way. In the morning,I'd find the bars of steel (more than 1) nicely annealed.
 
Personally I wouldn't use fluxcore. It will crack at the weld. Use mig with the correct filler wire. You could just use soft steel to get the shape & weld beads to keep it from wearing out. I often put a spot of weld on a edge that is going to contact the ground. Weld is harder then woodpecker teeth.
 
At one time, the Tool Room I worked in had a sideline of inserting used carbide inserts (lozenge shaped) in runners of Snowmobiles. You might consider this for your 'blower shoes. We'd cut a V groove in the runners, and silver solder the inserts in place. Yeah, it was night shift.
 
I've sharpened a lot of those with an angle grinder and a file. I don't think they are all that hard, otherwise there would be a lot more of them becoming projectiles. I like the Doctors idea of heating it red hot where you want to bend it. If you want to replace them less often, run a few beads of hard surfacing rod on the bottom. Mike
 
I'm just curious why the flux core would be more likely to crack? Is it Just from the general weld process or something else?
Personally I wouldn't use fluxcore. It will crack at the weld. Use mig with the correct filler wire. You could just use soft steel to get the shape & weld beads to keep it from wearing out. I often put a spot of weld on a edge that is going to contact the ground. Weld is harder then woodpecker teeth.
 
Naturally, there is a lot more to the story on the junkyard metals sorting. That chart is merely a suggested starting point, IMO. Over the years, steel makers are constantly changing things, and what may have been in common use 20 years ago has been replaced with something superior. So take it with a grain of salt....or maybe a lb. Add to that all the possibilities of heat treatment. If you find a finished part, yes, chances are pretty good that it has been heat treated. To what though? You can get such a variety of properties from so many alloys that even if your guess is correct on the metal type, you odds on guessing the HT condition aren't as good. About all you can do is take a file with you and check for hardness. Or if you wanted a correct set of hardness testing files.

The chart is not without merit, but there are caveats. Lots of good stuff can be found at the scrap yard. Ideally, since many metals are marked from the factory or distributor, you can find a piece large enough to still have some markings to ID it. But I wouldn't count on it. Around here, the local scrapers don't allow us to scrounge anymore anyway, so it doesn't help us. They used to, and I have a sneaking feeling that some of their regular customers might still get the privilege, but not most of us. There is a place in Jacksonville, a little town about 45 mins south of me that advertises sales of metals of all types. I've not visited with them, but I have often wondered if they are a distributor in disguise for a few larger companies.
 
I have a bunch of surface ground steel billets made from steel from Switzerland. Some are hardened,and were drawn to a purple color. Parts that were rejected by a company that makes book binding equipment. many years ago I sent off a sample to the Bureau of Standards and had it tested. I THINK they called it .80 carbon steel.

The tricky part is: The stuff looks like CAST IRON when it is broken. HOWEVER,it can be forged, and cast iron can't. It can be hardened just like water hardening tool steel. It makes chips that look just like cast iron chips when turned on a lathe.

It is a complete mystery to me. I'd love to know exactly what it really is. Anyone have any ideas? I went down to the scrap yard in a driving rain to gather up as much as I could find after I'd gotten the first piece home,sawed off a sample,and tried hardening it. The scrap yard owner said he thought I was CRAZY!!:) Maybe I am.
 
George,

Plain old high carbon steel equivalent to a 1060-1080 or C60-C80 steel, when harden is brittle a heck! When broken will have a texture of cast iron from the high carbon content. Don't know about the chips it makes, it has enough manganese content to make small brittle chips like a 1215 steel will make. Won't be powdery like cast iron chips but pretty close. The Europeans have more selections on materials than we do over here, so it could be something else out there.

Ken
 
I have worked a great deal of W1 type steels. This stuff is not the same at all.
 
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