I am soon to aquire a small Acorn platen table, with no tooling. Acorn gets $72 each. Any one have any good ideas for either recyclabe or reasonable priced new steel? At work I seldon use more than 3 or 4 holdowns at a time. I HATE buying tool steel, when so much goes to the junkyard every day. Thanks for any and all input.

Axle steel, large truck leaf spring, RR car springs---all heat treatable and all a bit of a pain to work with in large crossection!

Thanks for answering Thomas. What would be a good cheap apropriate steel for me to just buy a length of?

1050 - 1075 would be my choice. or 5160

I would be inclined to try 1045 its reasonably priced and yet has some extra carbon. It is also readily available.

I found the spline end of a truck driveshaft lying by the road. It has the spline, some kind of housing, a 1 ft length of driveshaft and the U-joint with its mount. Are any parts of that higher quality steel? The spline is about 3" in diameter, which makes me think of a dumptruck or something.

i have made some pretty MASSICE barn door hinges out of old axle. obviously manufacturers would use different materials but every all of the axles i have used i just cut the sline off of forged (which required my PH) And annealed, not a prolbem yet with any of the hinges.... i did water quench the one and could not put a drill bit through so had to anneal it again before drilled holes could be put in. i think you would be pretty safe using it as long as you try working with a small piece and test it to see if it will hold up for what you are wanting to do

would help if i checked my spelling before i posted a comment (duhhh)
the barn door hinges were MASSIVE! axles can be really tough material and harden quite well just remember to test it first.

If you are taking on a 3" cross section, make sure your power hammer is well tuned. Either that, or have a striker. It would be a LOT of work on your own :)

Have seen a few dogs made of cast iron and a few more from heavy rebar and mild steel
Its a holddown not rocket part.
Ken

Old car/truck tire nut wrenches (tire irons) work good. Not sure what they are, but some type of medium carbon steel and typically 5/8 to 3/4 inch in diameter or possibly larger. They work for many anvil pritchel holes and some smaller hardy holes. Might be too small for your table. You can leave the nut holding end of the wrench attached as it makes for a larger holding surface and is kind of like a farriers tongs with the hollow. Usually they are cheap at pawn shops etc.

Mild steel will work just fine.