mystery steel

[savarin]

Came across a rusty length of steel in my cleanup that I decided to cut in half and stick in the recycle bin.
I hacksawed halfway through and went to bend it in half where upon it snapped clean in half.
One end was pointed and the other was slightly mushroomed where it had been hit with a hammer.
I turned a bit with a HSS tool bit just to see what would happen, it cut fine with no problems but the chips were almost like cast iron chips just a bit coarser.
Anyone want to hazard a guess (or an exact) what it is?

 

[NortonDommi]

Ductile Cast Iron?

 

[coffmajt]

I think its just plain cast iron from the looks of the fracture surface where it broke. What does it look like when you touch it to a grinding wheel?

 

[Norseman C.B.]

From your description of the chips I would think malleable cast iron...
Smack it on a corner with a ball peen and see if it dents easily or chips off my .02........

 

[francist]

What's the diameter, around 5/8" maybe? One end pointed, one end slightly mushroomed, and heavily rusted. Wonder if it used to be an iron grounding rod?

-frank

 

[markba633csi]

I was thinking iron grounding rod too, don't know why. They're usually copper but maybe for a ship?

 

[kd4gij]

Does it glow in the dark?

 

[savarin]

Hitting it with the ball peen dented it and hitting a glancing blow chipped it.

 

[ch2co]

It’s a mystery to me.

 

[whitmore]

Cast iron against steel makes an acceptable bearing. That's enough stock for a lot of bushings.