G'day!

[Newbies]

G'day Mate!  I have been browsing this forum for a couple of days and totally respect you guys and have become somewhat fascinated by what you guys do!

I am a junior engineer from Australia really keen to learn a bit about high strength and ultra high strength steel grades from the experts who use this stuff on a day to day basis!  I have really limited knowledge of metallurgy and steel grades as it was only taught in a couple of subjects at uni and really need to know much more than I do to hold a conversation with a tool maker without sounding like an idiot.

Is anyone aware of alloy steels that can be used safely for forgings for more demanding applications than 4140 and still retain adequate toughness and ductile failure mode, good shock resistance if heat treated?  

Is there any steel safe to use where max tensile stress in excess of 1000 MPA and still have hardness less than 42 RWC or heat treated to that hardness on the surface and further surface hardnened so the inside is still ductile?

I have read about EN 25 EN 26 and 4330 and wonder about what is the experience with them?  I have noticed that 4140 is used quite a lot.  Is 4140 preferred as it is less prone to cracking and more easily heat treatable than the others or is it just easy to get and more cost effective? 

With the tool steel grades H13 and S7 etc, can they be used in general applications that are not tools and dies? 

Any internet links to good resources would be much appreciated!  I have searched internet will provide a list of alloys but it would be great to find a table with yield stress and UTS, % EL and other properties in a table and having trouble finding without paying for subscription.

Is there any steel grades or heat treatments to be avoided for particular reasons?

 

 

 

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard Newbie, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the gang live within visiting distance. Also, "Newbie" is more of a label than a good web handle, lots of folk are newbies so it'll be REALLY awkward using that for your name. 

That might be a record for the number of really vague questions in one post. It's an easy one though. Yes. 

You do know we play with fire and hit things with hammers yes? The forum isn't about casting amorphous titanium alloy turbines. Closed die forging rocket gimbals or color pairing photon twins. Nothing like that, we hold yellow hot steel with one hand, lay it on an anvil and hit it with a hammer in the other hand, though we sometimes bend, twist, weld or rivet it together too. Exotic alloys just aren't really our thing.

Don't go away though, I'm sure we can pump you for information while we get you addicted to blacksmithing. It's the king of crafts you know. 

Frosty The Lucky.