On 3 Mar 2004 04:25:03 -0800, (brownnsharp) wrote:

==="Tim Williams" wrote in message ...
=== In case anyone was wondering, rebar is indeed any composition. Tonight I
=== was forging on some and out of curiosity, cheezily heat treated one end
=== (brought it to orange heat, quenched, reheated for a little longer than it
=== took the water to boil off to sorta temper). Took a strike with the hammer
=== and sure enough it broke. Spark test reveals something like 1040 but it
=== must have some other alloying elements since it bears some resemblence to
=== higher alloy steel (wrench stock for instance).
===
=== So yes, it's real crappy material. On the other hand. It can be hardened.
=== What a scary thought, toolbits forged from rebar. Hmmmm. But still........
===
=== Tim
===
===I mentioned making something out of some old 1" rebar chunks I had to
===an old friend who was a machinist at one time in his life. He told me
===that "Rebar is harder than a whore's heart" I have always figured
===that that was the result of workhardening from rolling the bumps on
===the outside. I guess my question to you is not whether it will harden,
===but whether or not heating it to red and letting it cool down will
===result in something machinable. I have never tried it.
===
===brownnsharp

There is all kinds of grades of rebar. Lots of the stuff commonly sold
by home builder supply stores is very questionable as to what it
actually is. I have run up against some rebar that refused to take a
good weld and others that welded as nice as could be. Some I could
bend in a tight bend and others that would show signs of cracking.
Buying rebar from a steel supplier and knowing the actual specs of the
stuff is much better than buying rebar whose specs are unknown which
is common for lots of stuff sold by home builder suppliers as compared
to a real steel supplier. Lots of that stuff is imported junk of
unknown alloys just fasioned into typical rebar shape for sale to the
general consumer without regards to alloy spec, and used for staking
landscape timbers, etc down.

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