indentifying steel type

[belgianbrewer]

Dear blacksmiths

 

I come to you with a question.

 

Me and my wife recently purchased a house where during the process of modifying it to our needs we broke down a chimney and removed a useless wood stove. 

During the process we discovered that the stove was set in some kind of steel frame  composed of a few bars of what seems to be some quality of steel.  From the little experience that I do have I hit them with a hammer and the clean ring tells me that it is indeed steel and not iron.  since they are about the right size and shape of a knife blank the idea kind of rose to mind to maybe attempt to make a knife out of them.  (from what I've seen it seems a feasable hobby project to attempt)

 

I have however no idea what type or quality of steel it is.  And thus would like to know if any one can help me to attempt to determine whether or not I can indeed use these to turn into a knife.  The only thing that I can tell further than the fact that it sounds like steel and pretty heavy steel at that is that the bars are coated in some kind of red coating

 

are there any techniques to help me determine the type or quality of the steel

 

regards

[jmccustomknives]

Hitting it with a hammer is no test.  A spark test can give you a general idea of carbon content.  Heating and quenching then trying to break it will tell you if it will harden.  Take a walk through the stickies here on ifi.  good luck

[ThomasPowers]

*Extremely* unlikely to use a high carbon steel in that usage---it's much more expensive and harder to work with and so tends only to be used where absolutely necessary.

 

If it is a heavy bar forge down an end to knife thickness, heat to non-magnetic and quench in water---then hit it with a hammer to see if it SHATTERS---note PPE is MANDATORY.

[swedefiddle]

It is "Stove Steel", it comes out of the ground, goes through a mill and magically becomes Stove Steel!! :) :)

 

Neil

[belgianbrewer]

Hitting it with a hammer is no test.  A spark test can give you a general idea of carbon content.  Heating and quenching then trying to break it will tell you if it will harden.  Take a walk through the stickies here on ifi.  good luck

not really a test.  and I'm not claiming to be an expert on the subject but I do know the sound of e.g cast iron vs steel I was once "explained" the basics of hearing the difference between a steel katana and an aluminium composite iaito this way and the sound is clear as a bell so i'm reckoning that it is at least some kind of steel

[Dan C]

Tapping it w/ a hammer you're right will at least let you know if it's cast iron or maybe steel.  The next test as mentioned is to spark test it.  If you're not familiar with doing so I'd suggest doing it at the sametime with steel of a known carbon content.  So get a piece of mild steel or A36, then also an old file which should be .90 or .95.  See if what you have falls somewhere in between there.  You would be better off making a knife out of a known steel in order to properly heat treat it, but experimenting is fun and educational.

 

This thread may be of interest, '?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>>

 

there's also a good thread on testing steels of unknown carbon content, but I didn't have it bookmarked and ran out of time to look.

[ThorsHammer82]

it's more than likely just mild steel. no point in using a hardened steel for a stand. the coating is probably the same ceramic coating that was originally on the stove. it's a PITA to remove. but it can be done. Even if it's mild steel, that doesn't mean you can't make a knife out of it, it just wont hold an edge very well. it's good to use something like that to get used to making the shape you want. and to understand how to draw out the metal in the right proportions.

[Frosty]

When you do the heat treat and try to break it test be sure to not only wear PPE but lay a rag over the test coupon (the piece you forged to knife thickness and hardened) for a scatter shield. It will help contain fragments if it shatters.

 

A post earlier today from a member tells about a piece of mushroomed punch end that snapped off and traveled some 3" through the flesh of his hand before stopping. This isn't the same circumstance as you'll encounter if the coupon shatters but it's a good warning. The SNAP sound you hear isn't the sound of steel shattering, it's the snapped off piece breaking the sound barrier for a couple feet before it slows down to only dangerous velocity from bullet velocity. Guess what, you're only a couple feet away form the piece that's breaking, well within bullet speed range.

 

Scatter shield and PPE, a leather apron, cap and gloves are good AFTER EYE protection. Safety glasses behind a face shield are a basic good start.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[belgianbrewer]

Just to expand a little I do believe that IT is some kind of machining steel. I don't know who actually built the House sinds i bought IT from was the next owner but i've seen enough to know the guy was into heavy duty work and home machining stuff. The bars or more exactly slates look somewhat like the ones we had in the machine shop of a Sun blind factory i used to work many years ago. The coating looks like some type of red protective paint I'm going to try my best to make something of this "prize"

[arkie]

belgianbrewer...

 

There are a myriad of videos out there, some on youtube, showing simple spark testing with a hand-held grinder to differentiate various metals.  I recall one by a fellow posting welding videos, "chucke2009".  Check out this video where he compares mild steel with cast irons.  I think he may also have others showing testing of other steels.

 

[jgirard13]

You can machine almost any form or grade of metal including mild steel. Giving us a description of what it looks like and the ring it produces is like telling a cop the man that mugged you was white with a higher pitched voice then asking them who it was. There is several hundred grades and aloys of steel out there and only several dozen that will make a decent blade and only a couple dozen that make a exceptional blade. To give an educated guess we need a spark test, shatter test, quench test and file test to name some of the many test. Please dont get discouraged if we cant answer your question, we just need more info.

[ThomasPowers]

1018 with ver little carbon is a machining steel as is D2 with absolutely silly amounts of carbon and carbide formers in it.  Probably more 1018 gets machined as D2.

 

Now you do have a point as we all have a tendency to use what we have to hand in our scrap pile and I've run across incidences where high carbon steel has been used for a task that needed only low carbon---usually an unpleasant surprise with the dreaded "plink"