Weihtlifting bar

[mandoro]

Well I have acquired a weightlifting bar that someone was going to scrap. It is rusted up and I was wondering what it is made of. Its one of the long weight bars you see in gyms that are used for bench press and whatnot. I took it in hopes of acquiring some good metal to work with.

[HWooldridge]

Most of them are not solid but a hollow tube with filling and caps on the ends.

A solid one is probably mild steel - spark test it and try to determine if it has any carbon.

[cheftjcook]

Mandoro, I don't know what the steel is, but I know the solid steel bars we worked out with for bench press, dead lifts or clean-n-jerk were really tough stuff and took a lot of abuse and I have never seen one fail. I know there are light duty hollow bars they look more like black gas pipe. There is also a solid Olympic style bar which is even heavier and thicker. But either way the solid ones are made of tough, durable stuff. Hope it works well for you.
TIM

[ThomasPowers]

Well considering that the yield strength of A36 is 36,000 psi and a typical bar must be at leasi 1.5" if not more in diameter making it's yield strength over 63,000 pounds

So a mild steel bar would qualify as pretty tough I'd think in this usage. They generally don't use the more expensive carbon steels unless they have to.

But the proof is in the pudding; what does it spark as? What does a quench test yield?

[mandoro]

I have yet to perform the spark test because I dont have a grinder of any sort and my creative jucies for another way to test are out the window. I dont know how to do a quench test....so yea. I wasn't sure if there was a BP or not.

[johnny99]

If your talking about just the straight about 6' black solid wightlifting bars, With the cast iron collars w/grub screws to hold the weights on. They are 7/8" mild steel. I use them all the time, as stock because they are always getting thrown away around here.

[mandoro]

It isn't the black weightlifting bar it is more like the shiny ones. I don't know if it is chrome plated or what. I hope this is mild steel as well though, will save me from having to buy some.

[Mike Turner]

The ones I have used over the years are chrome plated, my guess is just mild steel. If you cut a piece off grind of the chrome plating and heat it to non magnetic then quench in water to see if it hardens.

[ThomasPowers]

Like Mike says, cut off a coupon, heat till non magnetic, quench in water and then check with file or I usually try to break it in the postvise---watching out for shards if it *was* high carbon.

[evfreek]

Hi. I'd go with the spark test. My striking partner had one which he swore was high carbon. I gave it a spark test, and agreed. It hardened in oil and skated a file. He made a handled hot cut out of it. It lasted for quite a while until he got it a little too hot, and quenched it in water. SNAP!!!

He had another one (big fella) which he did not test. It ended up making a mediocre tool which always required attention. I don't know, but I'd rather have the good steel. But, he is still using the bad one, and he was lucky to escape injury with the first. Big difference. Do a spark test! ;)

[mandoro]

Ok, I finally performed a spark test on the bar. All I can say is that sparks were flying. The spark pattern was that of a "bushy-tail" sort of tail. Not sure what that means, but if there is anything else you need to know about the spark pattern I can tell you.

As far as teh quench test I haven't dont that yet because I dont have enough charcoal. Imma fire up a batch tommorrow and hopefully get a test done by thursday.

[evfreek]

Hi Mandoro. How bushy is the tail? If it is not bushy, figure less than 20 points of carbon. Not enough to harden. You can see my photos

http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/3610/ppuser/716

for some spark test photos in color. Pay particular attention to the mild steel photo. If you have something like that, it is not "bushy". There is an example of 30 and 40 points of carbon. The 4140 prehard photo is not very good, and in both you have chromium to contend with, so the sparks will be slightly different from plain carbon steel.

Also, look at BP 0020. Look at the first few pictures. These are reliable, even though the colors are wrong, to gauge the amount of carbon. Even an untrained eye can tell 1018 from 1060 and 1095.

[ThomasPowers]

Generally you want to compare it with the sparks from a known piece of metal---say a file, an HC rrspike, a rail clip, chunk of RR Rail, piece of A36, leaf spring, coil spring, etc and then treat it like the one it's closest too.

since grinders and pressures differ having your own test samples helps.

[bipolarandy]

here are some better photos of sparks,
these are from Mild steel or A36,

' alt='' class='ipsImage' >

Note how the cluster is kinda loose and the sparks are long and straight and dont have many forks and bursts at the ends of them.

Now this is 5160 spring steel.



See how the cluster is much tighter and the sparks are shorter, and there are almost little fireworks at the ends of each spark.

Now this is a High carbon steel, comparable to a file, or possibly higher in carbon.
' alt='' class='ipsImage' >




See how the spark cluster almost looks solid its so dense, and each spark branches off into two or three other sparks.

Just to compare, look at these two side by side.
' alt='' class='ipsImage' >
' alt='' class='ipsImage' >


Hope those help
-Andrei

[mandoro]

Well I finnally hav come to my conclusion. I think it is the closest to the mild steel photos. It has the same spark pattern, there just aren't that many though. That may have something to do with the fact that I was doing it with an angle grinder? I dont have a bench grinder so yea.

Thanks to everyone who helped me.