"Reyd Dorakeen" wrote in message
...
just silver, it says on the reciept carbon steel drill rod, so if it
isn't,
I think I can take it back. would a belt sander do instead of the
grinder?

It's probably not fast enough.

If you want to assume they're right, and that it's plain carbon steel, you
shouldn't have much trouble hardening it.

There is a lot of odd stuff on the market today, with all of the imports,
but just be aware that plain-carbon-steel drill rod, once the most common
type, became less common than the alloyed, oil-hardening type around the
1970s. So people here may be wondering what you really have.

Anyway, if you have enough of it to sacrifice a 1-inch chunk for a test, you
can try the heat-and-quench test that someone described here, I think. If
it's not really drill rod, it won't get hard. If it gets really hard, you
have drill rod, but you don't know which type.

At that point I'd assume they're telling you straight that it's
plain-carbon, and treat it as a water-hardening steel. I think you've gotten
some directions here for doing that.

Ed Huntress