Poor man's metal test:

1. If you can't cut it with HSS, anneal it and try again.

2. If you still can't cut it with HSS, it is too hard.

3. If it takes "'carbide" tooling or grinding to cut it, it is still too
hard.

4. Anneal again and start over.

5. Quench, and then drop the workpiece on a concrete floor; if it shatters
it should be tempered before placing in service.

6. See "1" above and believe that the science of metallurgy would be only 2
weeks behind if there was no other material available save for cast iron and
mild steel.

Bob Swinney


"Hul Tytus" wrote in message
...
I paid $85 for a "metals test" of one sample a few years ago.

Hul

Tom Gardner wrote:
About a year ago, I bought about 1,500 lbs of "tool" steel rounds ranging
from 1.5" to 6" dia. in 4' average lengths. The guy that bought them
originally is dead. We all assumed that the steel was 0-1 and D-2 since
he
bought them for making dies. Notice the key word in the "Assumed"?
One
of the techs made a simple die insert assuming the piece was 0-1, torched
it
to red and quenched it...do it all the time with 0-1 and have few
problems.
This die was to punch a 1" arbor hole with a 3/8" keyway. It lasted for
20
pieces than broke from the corners of the keyway. He also said it cut a
little funny for 0-1. I suggested to remake the die and radius the sharp
corners and send it to the heat treater. I also suggested that it was
D-2
and sparked it with known samples of 0-1 and D-2...it looked like D-2 to
me
so the heat treater was told it was D-2. He calls back and says: "This
ain't D-2! I ran it twice and it won't harden, I think it's 0-1" He did
harden and draw it to 60R as 0-1 but he's still not sure of what it
really
is. He mentioned it might be 60115??? He also suggested they could send
out samples of the different rounds and have them analyzed for about $75
each. I thought I was pretty good at sparking but I'm obviously out of
my
box. Does this sound like a good price? Is this my best or only option?
Mystery steel does me no good, and I have a boat-load of it, it'll last
years!