February 8, 201016 yr A buddy of mine works at a rail yard. He brought me these (seven of them) saying that they are the clips that hold the brake shoes on train cars. They are about 12 to 14 inches long, 1 inch wide, and 1/2 inch thick at the bent end. I stuck one in the fire and straightened it out, mainly to find out how it would hammer, and decided they might make a nice starting place for a knife. It actually was very easy to work. At first I thought they were some type of spring steel, but he told me that when the need to adjust them they just lay em on the track and whack em. Any train guys out there that know what they are composed of?
February 8, 201016 yr They are brake shoe keys, we make 1000s of them each year. They are normally mild if they are double tapered, or 1045 if they are tapered on the thickness only with parallel sides ours are anyway. Not sure what the specs would be for US but would be really suprised if they were spring. Cheers Phil
February 8, 201016 yr They look like mini forklift forks. You could make a toy that looks like they picked up too much weight and bent the forks.
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