1060 as a drift?

[Acorazar]

Found a couple of railroad knuckle pins that should be AISI 1060.  Looking to work on a hammer sized drift and possibly an axe one as well.  

Good idea or bad idea? 

And I do understand that with a chunk of metal found next to a defunct railroad is the very definition of mystery metal, so taking any response with the baseline assumption of 1060 steel.

[Frosty]

How did it spark? How old is the rail line? It wasn't until major steel mills started winning bids that RR steel started becoming a consistent steel per part. Till then and even now it's all made to a performance spec, meaning if a piece of steel has X tensile strength, x modulus and will cycle x number of times without stress failure or yielding it's good to go. 

However, knuckle pins should made decent drifts, 60pts is more carbon than I like in struck tools but drifts are relatively low impact for struck tools. Still you'll want to keep an eye on the struck end and remember to dome it to minimize deformation.

If you don't have something needing the higher carbon I'd go ahead on it. By first sparking then making some test coupons to test for the heat treatment that will produce the tools you want / need. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Acorazar]

I'm still working on calibrating my eyes to really guage sparks, but I do have some basic mild steel and some 1095 to compare too.

At first probably just railroad spikes and mild steel.  So these should get me going.

Thanks for the info!

[Frosty]

Spark testing isn't a precision thing, it can NOT tell you what's in the alloy, and only a general estimate of the carbon content.

First, carbon burns faster than iron so sparklers tend to indicate carbon, the more and whiter the higher the carbon content. Probably.

The other reason high carbon sparks more and hotter is the resistance the grit on the wheel encounters as it abrades the steel. Harder steel makes hotter sparks just from the friction.

Different alloy metals can effect things dramatically.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Goods]

I wish I could print and scan the automotive technical standard I found for spark testing! According to the standard, you could get really close to exactly alloy (carbon, tungsten, molybdenum, chrome, vanadium, manganese… contents) based on number of sparks, spark branching style/amount, color and style/amount of “globules.” (Not sure if “globules” is the correct term…) Either way, the big key to spark testing is having known samples to compare to…

Keep it fun,

David

[Frosty]

I'd love to have a copy of that David. I've seen charts aplenty but most were pretty generalized. 

I think I'll get to searching. . . . Tumm de dumm tee dumm dumm tumm. (interlude music while I make Duck duck go )

The only things I found from the Automotive Institute were for "Ignition spark testing," there may be better search terms but I didn't find anything with ones I could think of.

Then there are these: Wiki has improved a lot in the past years. I'm a fan of, Sciencedirect, 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark_testing

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0263224121012550

Now we get into spectral analyzers. I'll just link the one, the others I looked at all referenced the same ASTM standards.

https://www.astm.org/products-services/standards-and-publications/standards/analytical-chemistry-standards.html

There are a number that are how tos by guys who maybe know what they're doing, I admit not reading more than skimming the headers.

No links to companies selling spectral analyzers.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Goods]

The Wikipedia page has some similar sketches, but lacks a lot of details that are in the standard. The standard is as produced by an Automotive OEM and it like pulling teeth get get access to those I’d probably get into hot water just printing a copy for myself let alone posting it. There is JIS version available for purchase, but it’s a bit steep for me.

[Frosty]

Wow, sorry gang seems WIKI is the best site I looked at. Both the other links are discussing precision analysis and not so useful for the average shop. I don't even want to know what an x-ray spectrometer costs. <sigh>

We're probably better off sticking with the spark test videos Randy posted to the forum. Teach me to type when I should be reading eh?

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[JHCC]

22 hours ago, Frosty said:

I don't even want to know what an x-ray spectrometer costs. <sigh>

I looked it up once, and once was enough. Don't ask me how much it was: I've blocked it out.

That said, I have had some good luck with asking folks at the scrap metal places to test a piece or two for me. Good thing, too: it saved me from buying some stuff that would have been utterly inappropriate to the use I had in mind.

[Frosty]

Agreed, asking someone who already owns one is a much better choice. All I could find was call for quote on the ones I found online. One cabinet model was only $36,000 used. I got excited but carrying a cabinet around the scrap yard is sooo inconvenient.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Purple Bullet]

Before I retired my chem -e job for a major oil company, I tried to get them to buy our group a Thermo Fisher XRF handheld. It was a little over $20 grand (US) at the time. It would have paid for itself quickly considering what we paid labs for analysis.

[ThomasPowers]

Reading a recent copy of ARCHEOLOGY magazine where they were using a hand held spec to identify cave/wall paintings paints.  Must have been a great grant!

[Frosty]

A great grant proposal writer!

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

My wife was going to take me around the scrapyard today then decided the winds were too high.   Arghhhhhhhhh!

[Frosty]

It's been breezy here today which takes the warm right off mid 50s. 

Frosty The Lucky.