pkrankow Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 It is a lift arm from an inground car lift. We changed them to above ground lifts at work and got my hands on 8 of them. I cleaned it up with a 4" inch grinder with a sandpaper disc on it. I was careful not to take off very much. The lift arms may be a number of different materials from mild steel to something like a forklift for is made from, which is medium carbon and well suited for use as an anvil. Those will come in handy. Make one a floor plate for upsetting by dropping long bars. You realize you already had 8 anvils in your possession. Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nocomment Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 The lift arms may be a number of different materials from mild steel to something like a forklift for is made from, which is medium carbon and well suited for use as an anvil. Those will come in handy. Make one a floor plate for upsetting by dropping long bars. You realize you already had 8 anvils in your possession. Phil Phil I did think of that. if you look close at the picture it shows some soap stone marks where I thought of making a half a**ed horn on one. I think its more like a fork lift arm stuff. It rings very nice when struck. each one ways at least 80 to 100 pounds. I was going to see about a stake plate out of one also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom W Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 I would not consider it unrepairable (if you have a welder and alot of time), I am welding a new back end on a similar one using 3 pieces of waterjet 1 1/2" plate with a slot milled in one (before welding it on) for a hardie hole. Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkrankow Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 here's some inspiration for one of those plates. Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matei campan Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 for a bladesmith it's even better than a "good" one Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knots Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 The lift arms may be a number of different materials from mild steel to something like a forklift for is made from, which is medium carbon and well suited for use as an anvil. Those will come in handy. Make one a floor plate for upsetting by dropping long bars. You realize you already had 8 anvils in your possession. Phil Nocomment, Phil brings up a good point. If those arms are medium carbon steel they could be used for a lot of tooling. Why not call the lift manufacturer technical support group and see if they can provide any information Re what these lift arms are made of. It could well be that you have a lifetime supply of an extremely useful material. Sure would be nice if it turned out to be 4150. You would be in hammer heaven. Even 1050 would be something to be real happy about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nocomment Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Knots They are old lifts with no info on them. I wouldnt be able to call anyone. Is there another way to see what kind of steel it is? I was able to drill a hole in it. it didnt drill really easy but it drill out. I was going to try to make a stake plate also. many things on the todo list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knots Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Knots They are old lifts with no info on them. I wouldnt be able to call anyone. Is there another way to see what kind of steel it is? I was able to drill a hole in it. it didnt drill really easy but it drill out. I was going to try to make a stake plate also. many things on the todo list. Well it seems that it is somewhat hardened. When I run across this kind of situation where I want to drill a hole in a piece of iron that doesn't really want to be drilled I will use my Oxy Acetylene torch and heat the spot up to about 500 Deg. Not much heat at all. Drill a smallish hole first. If it is a thick piece drill and heat and drill alternately until you have a hole all the way through the work piece. You can then aim the torch flame through the hole to anneal the area around the small hole and allow drilling a larger hole. There is a learning curve when first using this method but with care you can drill holes in pieces that you would not normally be able to drill while preserving some of the hardness in surrounding metal. It does not always work and if drilling a lot of holes sometimes it is best to anneal and re treat the steel High speed drills seem to do ok at these lower heats so I don't usually cool the metal before drilling but I do cool the drills . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkrankow Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Spark testing is a reasonable way to guess at a material, it helps if you have known samples to test against. There are videos on youtube showing sparking a variety of materials. Some scrap yards have an instrument that burns a pinhole and analyses the material. If you can talk to someone you may be able to bring the piece and have it tested. Just because the yard has the machine doesn't mean they will be willing to do this though. If you can drill it with some difficulty then it probably is something better than mild steel being used heat treated to a "spring" state, so somewhat on the softer end of tempering. On the very off chance it is chilled "white" cast iron, it will drill with difficulty and produce black powder instead of a curly chip. This material would not be used for lifting arms because it is brittle and will snap instead of bending. Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nocomment Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Phil When I drilled it a very nice long curly piece came out. called the lift company and they called Rotary the co who makes the lift and they actually had specs on the arm. Its "ASTM A572 grade 50" not sure what that comes out as in English but I'll be googling that next. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkrankow Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 A50 is a higher grade than A36, and is a specification based grade of recycled mystery metal. Looking it up should yield more answers. Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 50 Kpsi yield strength rather than 36 Kpsi for A 36: http://www.speedymetals.com/information/Material61.html Grade 50 is a high strength, low alloy steel that finds its best application where there is need for more strength per unit of weight. Less of this material is needed to fulfill given strength requirements than is necessary with regular carbon steels. Grade 50 is used in general plate applications when the plate will be riveted, bolted, or welded. Grade 50 is a Columbium-Vanadium steel that offers a minimum yield of 50,000 PSI. In addition, ASTM A572 Grade 50 is noted for its increased resistance to atmospheric corrosion. Grade 50 contains more alloying elements than plain carbon steel and thus is somewhat more difficult to form. Grade 50 is more difficult to cold work, but can be successfully bent or shaped but requires more force than plain carbon steel. ANALYSIS: Over 1-1/2" Carbon © 0.23 Manganese (Mn) 1.35 Silicon (Si) 0.15-0.4 Vanadium (V) 0.01-0.05 Niobium (Nb) 0.005-0.05 Phosphorus (P) 0.04 Sulfur (S) 0.05 Over 1-1/2" Carbon © 0.23 Manganese (Mn) 1.35 Silicon (Si) 0.15-0.4 Vanadium (V) 0.01-0.05 Niobium (Nb) 0.005-0.05 Phosphorus (P) 0.04 Sulfur (S) 0.05 So not what I'd use for hammers or a lot of tooling but better than A36! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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