Hi everyone,

I work for the rail company in Tasmania and some of the guys out in the field heard about my little hobby and said they would start bringing me stuff in. The first delivery has arrived.

It is nearly an inch in diameter and about 4 inches long with a large mushroom head. The guys here are not sure if it is cast or not, or what steel it is. Hoping someone here might have some information. The bolt was used on the rail line so I imagine it wouldnt be mild steel. It is not galvanised either. They gave me about 10 in total.

Thanks.

 

Giles

These are just going to be for playing with, but if someone knows if they are would make useful tools, such as punches etc. that would be great.

will probably be mild or slightly better stuff, try a spark test for carbon content, try hitting the thread  with a hammer to see how hard they are.

good things to play with and make into small items

Its steel.  Just had a look in the little book that came with my office (my office was the dogspike office at Cardiff Railway Workshops NSW).  It says that dog spikes were mild steel, rail bolts depending on the application were a little better grade of steel, sort of like a 1040.  The book says they were "red end" and "red end" has a brinell of 121HB and a tensile of 28 (I'm presuming that is tons per inch).  No reason to suggest that Taswegian Rail was any different in material selection.

Phil

 

Medium carbon in all the ones I have used.  They wanted a much tougher steel than mild.  I use these for dishing hammers and screwpress tooling and quench in oil or just normalize depending on the task.

Low-mid carbon in the ones we use on my rr, at least near Atlanta. I had to water quench though for a good hardening. Made the last one into a dishing stake for the hardy.

Thanks for the replies guys. I has hoping it would be a slightly better than mild steel item. Planning to make a couple different hardy tools and punches from them. 

Not sure what I will make for the guy who gave me them, perhaps a letter opener or something.